Hi all-- blogging is too tempting-- just blah blah blah all one want! Mine aren't nearly as erudite as Miriam's!
Just an update on leaving Maine-- the last week was so much fun-- saw neighbor kids in productions of Seussical the Musical and a concert of Pandemonium, the kids' branch of Schoodic Steel-- steel pan band-- you haven't llived until you've seen a lot of white old fogies whanging away enthusiastically--and well-- on steel pans, a form of music closely associated with the lively, lovely people of the Caribbean, not with Downeast Maine....
But Monday of that week I took in a concert of 32 players of steel pans, called Flash in the Pan (the groups are very prone to puns for names...) all but 1 of which were well over 40--that concert took place alongside one of Downeast's pretttiest places, the Tidal Falls in Sullivan--which is just what it says it is-- "falls" or very rapid rapids over rocks that change direction as the tide goes in and out. There is a small Conservancy park overlooking the falls, and a Maine-typical pine encrusted island complete with lighthouse in the middle of the river of the falls. The evening I was there, the moon was full and the sky clear, so the combination of full moon on the tide rushing in, the island, the park and the tent full of pan players and audience was intoxicating.
Visuals were a big part of my last week. On the Thursday before I left--Aug. 6---my forester completed clearing the marsh in front of my house of alders, clearing the view to lovely Tunk Stream and making a wide park-like expanse that now runs across four large properties. It is spectacular and something I was not sure could be accomplished so soon! I was especially happy that Forrest the forester could do it, as my shoulders and other muscles were beginning to resent my efforts at clearing 3-5 inche trees with large loppers.....
And on Friday the 7th, as I finished up last minute yard jobs like cutting down burdock plants that were literally the size of small trees ( burdocks are those sticky burrs in the shape of little balls that stick to everything when you are out walking-- awful--one time in Wausau, Lily got into a whole thicket of dried ones and was literally velcroed to herself!! She could not move an inch--fell over on the ground and gazed imploringly at me!!) that were growing at the edge of my lawn. It had been a typical Maine day of off again on again sunshine and clouds with breezes-- actually a beautiful day, punctuated by misty rain now and then. All of a sudden I looked up and saw a COMPLETE double rainbow ending right in Steuben. My pot of gold!! Neighbors Ray and Joan were out too and we all admired it.
I had the good fortune to meet one more neighbor before I left-- a lady who owns two houses on Village Road, actually--one huge two-story L shaped one near the highway in not-very good outside condition, and a second in our gathering of houses that mirrors the one being fixed up-- a Greek Revival Cape style, but that one has the ell (the added room typical of so many New England houses) and then the barn, also attached to the ell, making it a classic New England house. It is apparently in nearly original condition, with original fireplaces and all. She is a very nice lady and was thrilled to meet me and the new neighbors, the Roddas. Mr. Rodda explained that they were delighted to move to a place where neighbors talk to each other since at their old house, near the town of Milbridge, they knew none of the neighbors on their road and had made almost no friends. My housewarming gift to them was a large pot of hens and chicks (those succulent plants that look like rosettes) , which grow in profusion along my stone stairway at the back of my house.
So Saturday the 8th, I packed dog, cats and a lot of stuff into my trusty Honda and set off for Boston to have late lunch with Merm.
I traveled a different way, turning off north from west-bound route 1, towards Bangor--and was rewarded with a sight no one should miss: a full, unblemished view of all of Mt. Desert Island--all the mountains--and the bay between it and the mainland-- simply breathtaking. Words pale-- and I don't have a good enough camera to catch that. The rest of the way to Bangor included many other views of mountains all over Maine and lakes and inlets as well-- really a gorgeous drive.
Other than one cat barf, the trip was uneventful and I found Merm at our favorite Super 88, a huge Asian food market and food court, where we love to lunch. We had soup and other goodies while we caught up on her last couple of weeks in Boston and I was much relieved to find her ready to go and excited for her work. She had been, as her blog says, much saddened to leave friends, hospital and Northampton when I saw her in DC in mid-July.
After lunch I hit the glorious Clear Flour Bakery, an artisan bakery in Brookline where all of Boston livers used to shop for unimaginably good European-style baked goods. I loaded up on Italian rustic bread and hit the road--spent the night in Southington, which my girls and Jer will remember as our usual stoppover on trips to the island. It was a crappy motel, but cheap and took dogs and cats no problem. My kitties and Lily are terrific travelers, except the cats dislike the transitioning from cage to motel and back again. Lily, on the otherhand LOVES motels--she loves leaping from bed to bed and running up and down the halls-- she always tries to go upstairs, too-- we must have done that once, but I don't remember!!
Sunday we took route 80- through mid-PA and stopped briefly at the Delaware Water Gap -- a state and national forest --and a gorgeous place, though it was foggy and buggy and made for a challenging picnic.... then on through central PA to Baltimore and home--listening to a mystery story I missed the turn onto Georgia avenue!!
My apartment was clean and nice-- tenants took pretty good care of all--plants wanted attention but weren't dead, thank goodness and the difficult neighbors next door have been finally evicted.
Next blog-- starting work!
To thank my peerless neighbors for all their help, I baked a cherry pie for the Martins (they said they had never HAD cherry pie...!!) because Ray helped me cut down so many cherry trees, and chocolate cake for their family and the Lipskys across the road with the cute 4 children. All enjoyed the sweets.
Friday, August 14, 2009
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Last posting from Maine
hi all-- just got Jerry's amazing posting from Italy--makes Maine sound pretty tame.....
It is hot and sunny at last--- and I have to leave on Saturday. Best news is that my view down to the stream is completely clear of alders. Forest the forester has worked hard. Now I am trying to cut out small stumps and raspberries to keep the slope from my yard to the marsh clear, too.
Lots of exhausting work.
Jason and Anna and 7 amazing friends were here from Thursday through Sunday-- we packed in people clear to the attic and had 4 meals of 10 or more people in my little dining room. More details on that next week.
Lily has been waiting in the car for nearly three hours-- must rescue her. :Love to all-- Robin/mom/Roibn.
It is hot and sunny at last--- and I have to leave on Saturday. Best news is that my view down to the stream is completely clear of alders. Forest the forester has worked hard. Now I am trying to cut out small stumps and raspberries to keep the slope from my yard to the marsh clear, too.
Lots of exhausting work.
Jason and Anna and 7 amazing friends were here from Thursday through Sunday-- we packed in people clear to the attic and had 4 meals of 10 or more people in my little dining room. More details on that next week.
Lily has been waiting in the car for nearly three hours-- must rescue her. :Love to all-- Robin/mom/Roibn.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
7/10/09
Now and Again Notes from Maine—Chapter 2 –Friday, Junly10
Two full days of sunshine!! We are all weak with joy and relief. It rained HARD all Tuesday night and Wednesday. I was so cold I went to bed at 9 PM so I could warm up with my electric bed pad! And two days I have awakened at 7 AM to the growl of a chain saw—the forester (Forest is his name!) I found who promised to clean out some messy trees has been busy! It is so reminiscent of days on the island with Ayo’s chain saw growling down below the big house, clearing our view. He is working right now as I write—using wedges to be sure the trees fall just where he wants them to. He isn’t quite as good as Ayo, who could lay a huge tree down exactly where he wanted it.
Forest and his helper Mike backed their truck up down over the edge of my slope to load up wood from my trees and the trees from the other property—and when he got the truck loaded, it was so heavy and wet under foot that he couldn’t move. So after fussing around for about half an hour, he went over hat in hand to neighbor Ray, who promptly arrived with his whomping big pick up truck and pulled the other truck up the slope without even spinning his wheels. Forest the forester was mightily impressed! So was I!!
Yesterday I was visiting over at the house being rehabbed when Forest took down a gigantic spruce—fully three feet in diameter and probably 100 feet high—it was like removing a wall! The view that opened up from their great room has to be the best in the county—a full, unobstructed view of the stream in its last meander past the island going into the estuary and then right down the estuary—with pines along the shore and the bright green marshes on either side of the deep blue stream, it is a CLASSIC Maine view. The owners were ecstatic!! Neighbor Joan (Ray’s wife) pointed out this morning that in its heyday, Steuben was mostly clear of trees and one could see from the harbor right up to the church, so she and others consider it a return to the way it was to be doing all this clearing—it sure is wonderful to see the stream and bay. The builder claimed the lengths of that huge tree and two other spruces – he will mill them and age them for some lovely spruce lumber!
Everyday there are new workmen over at that house—today, a couple and their teenage son—the father is the excavator who owns the big shovel that has been scraping off every last inch of weedy topsoil and all the stumps. Yesterday the shovel guy went down the slope and limbed that spruce before it was cut. I had never seen that before—as Forest said, it was like a big bear clawing at the tree and bringing down 10-12 limbs at a whack!! Today the couple and son had a little vehicle called a “mule,” which is just a tiny truck, plus another small tractor pulling a rake. The father raked clean the scraped dirt and the wife loaded up the mule with the trash from that and the tree cutting, which was then all deposited on large heaps at the bottom of the slope in the marsh and will be burned when it starts to rain again. The owner’s brother arrived from Tampa Wed. AM—he is a contractor there, and came to put in the kitchen cabinets—I was ASTOUNDED to see the cabinets, which are vertical boards and aged to look old—the owner, Madeline, says the design is “old country’—it is both good looking but also a little much… oh well—not my house. They are such nice people and LOVE being neighbors, so that is fun. All the little girls in the neighborhood know the owner’s daughter, Christina, and today she is playing with Allexis, Ray and Joan’s 8 year old next door.
It’s really been a beehive of activity all over the neighborhood. Besides the army of workers at the house next door, EVERYONE was out on the riding mowers today since the grass is finally dry. All day Wednesday in the pouring rain, Wednesday evening until late, and Thursday neighbor Ray burned all that brush he and I have been cutting. He still has many piles to go. Forest told me he also will not burn until it is raining and has BEEN raining. He said, “I would much rather struggle to keep a fire burning than struggle to try to put it out!” Very wise, I say! Ray just poured on cans of lighter fluid until the fire caught and then once the core was hot, it kept itself going. Joan brought down a whole pack of marshmallows—no shortage of green long sticks! We had marshmallows in between hauling armloads of brush to the fires.
Today I finished digging up the sod in my day lily bed---it is an old stone rectangle about 10 X 4’—no one is sure what it used to be, but it makes a fine day lily bed, for sure. What a job getting the sod out, though. I’ve been thinking that were I a history teacher, I could comment with authority about the sod-busters like our great-grandparents, who pioneered in the West! I brought up a lot of day lilies from DC—should have some of my double orange, which I have dragged around since maybe Irving Street, and then some dark red ones I rescued a decade ago from the gardeners at AU, who were changing the plantings in the beds and throwing out bushels of them.
Yesterday Agnes and I had another nice adventure. First, I got my hair cut at ”Four Corners” (properly pronounced “Fah Cahnahs”) by my favorite hairdresser, Kim, who has a cute little one-person salon in a teensy strip mall, and who has been cutting Jason’s family’s hair summers and Christmas vacations since Jason was about 10, according to Kim—and who keeps me up to date on all the Fish news—like Jason’s brother Brady surprising his mother with a visit this week all the way from Nashville!. Fah Cahnahs is an intersection on Coastal Route 1 on the way to Machias, and it has something commercial on each of the four corners of the intersection, hence its name… Kim’s salon is right next to a great thrift shop (unfortunately closed that afternoon) (where Hannah Baldwin got the most fabulous leather jacket when we were here in December) and a garden shop is nearby. I stopped in there and got some perennials for my garden –painted daisies and purple bell flowers. Then we continued on up the coast (actually almost straight east) to Machias, the county seat and home of one of the branches of the University of Maine. We had dinner at a really cute little restaurant looking out over the estuary of whatever river it is runs through Machias to the sea—which is about 4 miles off at that point. The restaurant was at the end of the causeway where we watched fireworks last weekend. I had the most delicious scallop stew you can imagine—buttery and fresh and FULL of slices of scallop, AND their most popular salad, says the menu, which features locally made goat’s cheese (so you know this is a university town….!!).
From there we went to the University because last weekend in Jonesport (where we were for the miniature boat races) we met some people from The Great Auk Land Trust giving out information about a newly formed conservancy organization that is the result of a merge of theirs with another. They told us about a fundraising event—two documentaries being shown at U of M,M., so Agnes and I had decided to go.
One documentary was about the reintroduction of wolves into Yellowstone in the late 1990’s and it followed the progress of one of several packs that were put back into the park. It was vintage NG—vivid natural photography that included graphic scenes of elk getting killed by wolves, coyotes getting killed by wolves, and other wolves getting mauled and killed by wolves…but of course that was all in the natural course of things and in the end all was well—wolves thriving with their pups. The second documentary was the one we had come to see—about the wild parrots of Telegraph Hill in San Francisco and the wacky, gentle man, Mark Bittner, who fed them and learned all about them and followed their lives and travails for about 4 years. It is an utterly enchanting documentary! The birds are gorgeous and the movie is largely about a few specific birds that Mark got especially close to before his landlords told him they needed to renovate his little cottage on the hillside and he had to leave that and his birds. He learned so much about them—one man at the zoo said he is probably the only person who has studied the lives of parrots to the degree that he did because parrots are notoriously difficult to study in their natural habitats in South America. And the movie has an equally charming ending, which I will not give away in the event all of you have not seen this film,.
After the movie, the host organization had a LOVELY spread of fruit and yogurt, coffee cake, etc. – so we chatted with a lot of awfully interesting PLU (people like us)—in this case, people from “away,” interested in wildlife.)
That kept us out until 11!!—
Today, Friday, Agnes and I went into Ellsworth to see another documentary, this one about the people who greet the troops leaving for or arriving from Iraq and Afghanistan in Bangor. Bangor is the exit point for nearly all of these troops. We thought it was going to be a sort of uplifting factual documentary about the effort and those who started it. Instead it was a TOTALLY depressing 2 hours about three of the greeters, two old men veterans, and one old lady—a great grandmother with terrible arthritis and many health issues. One of the old guys was a widower and fell apart when his wife died so he was living like the famous Fanny – literally knee deep in empty animal food cans, dirty dishes etc. and later in the movie you find out he was a collector, too--- 27 vacuum cleaners…!! During the course of the movie he finds out he has cancer and the camera focuses on his ravaged, OLD face and he cries, and then goes into his house and wades through the trash….yikes! The other old guy was more cheerful, but has a dog who dies during the movie and he comes unglued. The old lady was sort of a grit-your-teeth kind of person but has to face two grandchildren going off to Iraq the same week. We are supposed to be moved by how much the troop greeting means to these people, who force themselves to come to the airport despite all their troubles, but believe me, it didn’t feel so good. Agnes, who is herself 81 and a force to be reckoned with—painted woodwork all day today—was annoyed to death by these sad people and insisted that they were typical of “real Maine people, “ for whom she has little use. She just grumbled and complained the whole way home that they could have done so much better for themselves, and what business did that man have spending all his money on animal food and lottery tickets??? In truth, the filmmaker tried to end on a reasonably positive note with the first guy’s cancer in remission and his farm finally sold and him living in a little mobile home park close to the airport, and the others cheering up a bit, but it was a downer for the most part. WE DO NOT recommend it!!
Saturday—more sun! one more outing—I stayed close to home today trying to move forward on several fronts—not all that successfully. In the late afternoon, I went down to Ellsworth to do some shopping and meet Agnes so we could go to Bucksport/ Fort Knox to a Scottish Tattoo. Our neighbor Steve, who with his wife really looks after Agnes and her property a lot, came along. (Steve and wife Linda moved up here from Frederick, MD in 2005 and fixed up the house on the road that has THE killer view of the bay—sits right smack at the top of the bay on a hill. It is about 200 years old and has its original kitchen fireplace, split stairway and many other features, gray shingles, connected to barn and garage in the traditional way—very, very cute. Their house is on the same side of the road as my house and my neighbors, the Rays, but down a ways since there are two small fields between two houses. They sit at the top of the wharf road, at the far end of which sits Agnes’ house, just above the ancient wharf, where I said in the last letter the couple had started lobstering. Steve and Linda own lots of property all over this area—mostly multi-unit rental properties—and just recently bought a gas station/general store in Clinton, which is south of here about two hours, where they now live during the week. I must reveal all and say that Steve and Linda and Agnes are FLAMING Republicans and blame ALL the country’s ills on THE ILLEGALS (always said at top volume) and Agnes is SURE Obama is really beholden to and in the pockets of THOSE MOSLEMS!! She is also convinced global warming is a hoax being perpetrated on us by the democrats and that we are all going to hell because of the cap and trade bill that was just passed. Needless to say, this makes certain conversations rather difficult for us…...)
Bucksport and Fort Knox sit on either side of the Penobscot River, one of Maine’s biggest, just where it empties into Penobscot Bay, long one of Maine’s most desirable locations for people from away because of its classic Maine coast line and dozens of islands, including Vinalhaven, which is where someone in Bush’s cabinet summers—can’t remember who, though—and also the site of much history and the Maine Maritime Academy in Castine. Recently the state rebuilt the bridge across the Penobscot Narrows---which connects the mainland to Verona Island, which sits in the middle of the river, and then another causeway connects the island to Bucksport on the north side of the river. This is the only crossing of the Penobscot River south of Bangor, and if you look at your maps, that is a LONG way—so this is an important bridge. The new bridge looks like small version of the new bridge over the Charles in Boston –very dramatic and modern suspension bridge with two huge towers from which the gigantic cables are strung in a fan shape-- and there is an observatory in one tower that has become an instant tourist sensation. The old bridge, rusty but picturesque, is still there. Fort Knox sits on the south side of the river across from Bucksport and at the north end of the new bridge. (If you look on a map, the fort, the bridge, the island and the other causeway are all on an L, with the end of the lower leg of the L being Bucksport.
Fort Knox is one of a string of forts built in Maine around the time of the war of 1812, though most of the fortifications were there earlier. I was thinking this evening that these forts are sort of America’s versions of castles on the Rhine—old, dramatic fortresses overlooking water—For our family, the Mundies, and anyone else who spent time at the island, this fort would look very familiar—it is of the same construction as Fort Gorges in Portland Harbor, where we visited every summer on one of the big boats after getting ice cream at Peaks Island. This one is in gorgeous repair since it is being looked after by a volunteer group (and you can bet it was started by those people from away who now inhabit the whole Penobscot area). The fort looks out over the inlet and the river and the opposite bank and is in a spectacular location for defense.
We all sat inside around the now-grass covered parade ground on chairs we brought or on the grass or ledges. Lots of people were sitting around the upper perimeter of the fort (which at Fort Gorges is –or used to be—all overgrown with sumac and passable only by a little goat track which scared the willies out of me). The fort has five huge cannon emplacement arches—about 25 feet in diameter and about 15 feet high, and then there is a tall narrow arch where the ramp into the fort enters—all of the arches are in a gentle semicircle with slits facing the water, of course. The show was performances by 5 bands—1 fife and drum corps—The First Maine Volunteers—Civil War era – and 4 bagpipe and drum groups from all over the state in full Scottish regalia—plus one solo piper, a remarkable young man of 15 who competes internationally and is exceptionally good. After listening to some of these painfully amateur volunteer bands, it was clear why this boy was so good!! Normally it is difficult for me to know if pipers are good or not—they are just loud and screechy—but tonight being in tune or not was also clear…!
The bands entered by marching up the ramp through entrance arch and then up more ramp into the parade ground area in the middle of the fort—VERY dramatic with the drums and pipes echoing off the arches and the bands slowly rising into view, the obligatory drum major with his huge baton—only one group had the giant bear skin hats of the Black Watch Band (Imitation, I am sure). Most had GIANT sporan- -the bag that hangs down in front, also animal skin of some kind.
dramatic though they were, two and half hours of show and suffice it to say that I have had my fill of bagpipe music for quite a while—until the Scottish Walk in Alexandria, VA in the fall at least!! We remarked on how many women were in the bands—all but the Anah Pipers from Bangor, who are from a Temple of Shriners from and appear in all the parades with their miniature cars or boats or whatever zooming around or on floats, raising money for children’s hospitals and other good causes—Anahs are all men.(They were the ones in bear-skin-type hats). One group had two ENORMOUS women—I am not exaggerating here—in their kilts with horizontal stripes….and another was a very funny motley crew of tubby –VERY tubby—youngish boy drummers, one VERY tall skinny drummer—literally an Ichabod Crane of a boy—an adams apple out to HERE—and one tiny little girl piper and then a whole lot of big men pipers and another large girl on the big bass drum—funny looking group.
Though the show was actually pretty nice and the place lovely and sky lovelier pale blue with a light cloud cover, it IS Maine in July—so the temperature was down to 60 and falling as the wind picked up –tourists in their shorts and bare feet were wrapping up in towels and blankets and finally bailing at about 7:45, when kids were complaining of cold. Those of us who know Maine better came with jackets and long pants—though even that wasn’t enough. Seethe with jealousy, those of you baking or steaming in summer heat!
Favorite crowd glimpse—a geeky boy of about 13 –sort of Harry Potter looking boy with funny, roundish glasses—wearing a T shirt that said, “ Mullet Removal Team” !!!!
Well—lots more ramblings—You are all too kind to read….. may these letters give you a taste of this foreign country of Downeast Maine.
Love, Mom/Robin
Two full days of sunshine!! We are all weak with joy and relief. It rained HARD all Tuesday night and Wednesday. I was so cold I went to bed at 9 PM so I could warm up with my electric bed pad! And two days I have awakened at 7 AM to the growl of a chain saw—the forester (Forest is his name!) I found who promised to clean out some messy trees has been busy! It is so reminiscent of days on the island with Ayo’s chain saw growling down below the big house, clearing our view. He is working right now as I write—using wedges to be sure the trees fall just where he wants them to. He isn’t quite as good as Ayo, who could lay a huge tree down exactly where he wanted it.
Forest and his helper Mike backed their truck up down over the edge of my slope to load up wood from my trees and the trees from the other property—and when he got the truck loaded, it was so heavy and wet under foot that he couldn’t move. So after fussing around for about half an hour, he went over hat in hand to neighbor Ray, who promptly arrived with his whomping big pick up truck and pulled the other truck up the slope without even spinning his wheels. Forest the forester was mightily impressed! So was I!!
Yesterday I was visiting over at the house being rehabbed when Forest took down a gigantic spruce—fully three feet in diameter and probably 100 feet high—it was like removing a wall! The view that opened up from their great room has to be the best in the county—a full, unobstructed view of the stream in its last meander past the island going into the estuary and then right down the estuary—with pines along the shore and the bright green marshes on either side of the deep blue stream, it is a CLASSIC Maine view. The owners were ecstatic!! Neighbor Joan (Ray’s wife) pointed out this morning that in its heyday, Steuben was mostly clear of trees and one could see from the harbor right up to the church, so she and others consider it a return to the way it was to be doing all this clearing—it sure is wonderful to see the stream and bay. The builder claimed the lengths of that huge tree and two other spruces – he will mill them and age them for some lovely spruce lumber!
Everyday there are new workmen over at that house—today, a couple and their teenage son—the father is the excavator who owns the big shovel that has been scraping off every last inch of weedy topsoil and all the stumps. Yesterday the shovel guy went down the slope and limbed that spruce before it was cut. I had never seen that before—as Forest said, it was like a big bear clawing at the tree and bringing down 10-12 limbs at a whack!! Today the couple and son had a little vehicle called a “mule,” which is just a tiny truck, plus another small tractor pulling a rake. The father raked clean the scraped dirt and the wife loaded up the mule with the trash from that and the tree cutting, which was then all deposited on large heaps at the bottom of the slope in the marsh and will be burned when it starts to rain again. The owner’s brother arrived from Tampa Wed. AM—he is a contractor there, and came to put in the kitchen cabinets—I was ASTOUNDED to see the cabinets, which are vertical boards and aged to look old—the owner, Madeline, says the design is “old country’—it is both good looking but also a little much… oh well—not my house. They are such nice people and LOVE being neighbors, so that is fun. All the little girls in the neighborhood know the owner’s daughter, Christina, and today she is playing with Allexis, Ray and Joan’s 8 year old next door.
It’s really been a beehive of activity all over the neighborhood. Besides the army of workers at the house next door, EVERYONE was out on the riding mowers today since the grass is finally dry. All day Wednesday in the pouring rain, Wednesday evening until late, and Thursday neighbor Ray burned all that brush he and I have been cutting. He still has many piles to go. Forest told me he also will not burn until it is raining and has BEEN raining. He said, “I would much rather struggle to keep a fire burning than struggle to try to put it out!” Very wise, I say! Ray just poured on cans of lighter fluid until the fire caught and then once the core was hot, it kept itself going. Joan brought down a whole pack of marshmallows—no shortage of green long sticks! We had marshmallows in between hauling armloads of brush to the fires.
Today I finished digging up the sod in my day lily bed---it is an old stone rectangle about 10 X 4’—no one is sure what it used to be, but it makes a fine day lily bed, for sure. What a job getting the sod out, though. I’ve been thinking that were I a history teacher, I could comment with authority about the sod-busters like our great-grandparents, who pioneered in the West! I brought up a lot of day lilies from DC—should have some of my double orange, which I have dragged around since maybe Irving Street, and then some dark red ones I rescued a decade ago from the gardeners at AU, who were changing the plantings in the beds and throwing out bushels of them.
Yesterday Agnes and I had another nice adventure. First, I got my hair cut at ”Four Corners” (properly pronounced “Fah Cahnahs”) by my favorite hairdresser, Kim, who has a cute little one-person salon in a teensy strip mall, and who has been cutting Jason’s family’s hair summers and Christmas vacations since Jason was about 10, according to Kim—and who keeps me up to date on all the Fish news—like Jason’s brother Brady surprising his mother with a visit this week all the way from Nashville!. Fah Cahnahs is an intersection on Coastal Route 1 on the way to Machias, and it has something commercial on each of the four corners of the intersection, hence its name… Kim’s salon is right next to a great thrift shop (unfortunately closed that afternoon) (where Hannah Baldwin got the most fabulous leather jacket when we were here in December) and a garden shop is nearby. I stopped in there and got some perennials for my garden –painted daisies and purple bell flowers. Then we continued on up the coast (actually almost straight east) to Machias, the county seat and home of one of the branches of the University of Maine. We had dinner at a really cute little restaurant looking out over the estuary of whatever river it is runs through Machias to the sea—which is about 4 miles off at that point. The restaurant was at the end of the causeway where we watched fireworks last weekend. I had the most delicious scallop stew you can imagine—buttery and fresh and FULL of slices of scallop, AND their most popular salad, says the menu, which features locally made goat’s cheese (so you know this is a university town….!!).
From there we went to the University because last weekend in Jonesport (where we were for the miniature boat races) we met some people from The Great Auk Land Trust giving out information about a newly formed conservancy organization that is the result of a merge of theirs with another. They told us about a fundraising event—two documentaries being shown at U of M,M., so Agnes and I had decided to go.
One documentary was about the reintroduction of wolves into Yellowstone in the late 1990’s and it followed the progress of one of several packs that were put back into the park. It was vintage NG—vivid natural photography that included graphic scenes of elk getting killed by wolves, coyotes getting killed by wolves, and other wolves getting mauled and killed by wolves…but of course that was all in the natural course of things and in the end all was well—wolves thriving with their pups. The second documentary was the one we had come to see—about the wild parrots of Telegraph Hill in San Francisco and the wacky, gentle man, Mark Bittner, who fed them and learned all about them and followed their lives and travails for about 4 years. It is an utterly enchanting documentary! The birds are gorgeous and the movie is largely about a few specific birds that Mark got especially close to before his landlords told him they needed to renovate his little cottage on the hillside and he had to leave that and his birds. He learned so much about them—one man at the zoo said he is probably the only person who has studied the lives of parrots to the degree that he did because parrots are notoriously difficult to study in their natural habitats in South America. And the movie has an equally charming ending, which I will not give away in the event all of you have not seen this film,.
After the movie, the host organization had a LOVELY spread of fruit and yogurt, coffee cake, etc. – so we chatted with a lot of awfully interesting PLU (people like us)—in this case, people from “away,” interested in wildlife.)
That kept us out until 11!!—
Today, Friday, Agnes and I went into Ellsworth to see another documentary, this one about the people who greet the troops leaving for or arriving from Iraq and Afghanistan in Bangor. Bangor is the exit point for nearly all of these troops. We thought it was going to be a sort of uplifting factual documentary about the effort and those who started it. Instead it was a TOTALLY depressing 2 hours about three of the greeters, two old men veterans, and one old lady—a great grandmother with terrible arthritis and many health issues. One of the old guys was a widower and fell apart when his wife died so he was living like the famous Fanny – literally knee deep in empty animal food cans, dirty dishes etc. and later in the movie you find out he was a collector, too--- 27 vacuum cleaners…!! During the course of the movie he finds out he has cancer and the camera focuses on his ravaged, OLD face and he cries, and then goes into his house and wades through the trash….yikes! The other old guy was more cheerful, but has a dog who dies during the movie and he comes unglued. The old lady was sort of a grit-your-teeth kind of person but has to face two grandchildren going off to Iraq the same week. We are supposed to be moved by how much the troop greeting means to these people, who force themselves to come to the airport despite all their troubles, but believe me, it didn’t feel so good. Agnes, who is herself 81 and a force to be reckoned with—painted woodwork all day today—was annoyed to death by these sad people and insisted that they were typical of “real Maine people, “ for whom she has little use. She just grumbled and complained the whole way home that they could have done so much better for themselves, and what business did that man have spending all his money on animal food and lottery tickets??? In truth, the filmmaker tried to end on a reasonably positive note with the first guy’s cancer in remission and his farm finally sold and him living in a little mobile home park close to the airport, and the others cheering up a bit, but it was a downer for the most part. WE DO NOT recommend it!!
Saturday—more sun! one more outing—I stayed close to home today trying to move forward on several fronts—not all that successfully. In the late afternoon, I went down to Ellsworth to do some shopping and meet Agnes so we could go to Bucksport/ Fort Knox to a Scottish Tattoo. Our neighbor Steve, who with his wife really looks after Agnes and her property a lot, came along. (Steve and wife Linda moved up here from Frederick, MD in 2005 and fixed up the house on the road that has THE killer view of the bay—sits right smack at the top of the bay on a hill. It is about 200 years old and has its original kitchen fireplace, split stairway and many other features, gray shingles, connected to barn and garage in the traditional way—very, very cute. Their house is on the same side of the road as my house and my neighbors, the Rays, but down a ways since there are two small fields between two houses. They sit at the top of the wharf road, at the far end of which sits Agnes’ house, just above the ancient wharf, where I said in the last letter the couple had started lobstering. Steve and Linda own lots of property all over this area—mostly multi-unit rental properties—and just recently bought a gas station/general store in Clinton, which is south of here about two hours, where they now live during the week. I must reveal all and say that Steve and Linda and Agnes are FLAMING Republicans and blame ALL the country’s ills on THE ILLEGALS (always said at top volume) and Agnes is SURE Obama is really beholden to and in the pockets of THOSE MOSLEMS!! She is also convinced global warming is a hoax being perpetrated on us by the democrats and that we are all going to hell because of the cap and trade bill that was just passed. Needless to say, this makes certain conversations rather difficult for us…...)
Bucksport and Fort Knox sit on either side of the Penobscot River, one of Maine’s biggest, just where it empties into Penobscot Bay, long one of Maine’s most desirable locations for people from away because of its classic Maine coast line and dozens of islands, including Vinalhaven, which is where someone in Bush’s cabinet summers—can’t remember who, though—and also the site of much history and the Maine Maritime Academy in Castine. Recently the state rebuilt the bridge across the Penobscot Narrows---which connects the mainland to Verona Island, which sits in the middle of the river, and then another causeway connects the island to Bucksport on the north side of the river. This is the only crossing of the Penobscot River south of Bangor, and if you look at your maps, that is a LONG way—so this is an important bridge. The new bridge looks like small version of the new bridge over the Charles in Boston –very dramatic and modern suspension bridge with two huge towers from which the gigantic cables are strung in a fan shape-- and there is an observatory in one tower that has become an instant tourist sensation. The old bridge, rusty but picturesque, is still there. Fort Knox sits on the south side of the river across from Bucksport and at the north end of the new bridge. (If you look on a map, the fort, the bridge, the island and the other causeway are all on an L, with the end of the lower leg of the L being Bucksport.
Fort Knox is one of a string of forts built in Maine around the time of the war of 1812, though most of the fortifications were there earlier. I was thinking this evening that these forts are sort of America’s versions of castles on the Rhine—old, dramatic fortresses overlooking water—For our family, the Mundies, and anyone else who spent time at the island, this fort would look very familiar—it is of the same construction as Fort Gorges in Portland Harbor, where we visited every summer on one of the big boats after getting ice cream at Peaks Island. This one is in gorgeous repair since it is being looked after by a volunteer group (and you can bet it was started by those people from away who now inhabit the whole Penobscot area). The fort looks out over the inlet and the river and the opposite bank and is in a spectacular location for defense.
We all sat inside around the now-grass covered parade ground on chairs we brought or on the grass or ledges. Lots of people were sitting around the upper perimeter of the fort (which at Fort Gorges is –or used to be—all overgrown with sumac and passable only by a little goat track which scared the willies out of me). The fort has five huge cannon emplacement arches—about 25 feet in diameter and about 15 feet high, and then there is a tall narrow arch where the ramp into the fort enters—all of the arches are in a gentle semicircle with slits facing the water, of course. The show was performances by 5 bands—1 fife and drum corps—The First Maine Volunteers—Civil War era – and 4 bagpipe and drum groups from all over the state in full Scottish regalia—plus one solo piper, a remarkable young man of 15 who competes internationally and is exceptionally good. After listening to some of these painfully amateur volunteer bands, it was clear why this boy was so good!! Normally it is difficult for me to know if pipers are good or not—they are just loud and screechy—but tonight being in tune or not was also clear…!
The bands entered by marching up the ramp through entrance arch and then up more ramp into the parade ground area in the middle of the fort—VERY dramatic with the drums and pipes echoing off the arches and the bands slowly rising into view, the obligatory drum major with his huge baton—only one group had the giant bear skin hats of the Black Watch Band (Imitation, I am sure). Most had GIANT sporan- -the bag that hangs down in front, also animal skin of some kind.
dramatic though they were, two and half hours of show and suffice it to say that I have had my fill of bagpipe music for quite a while—until the Scottish Walk in Alexandria, VA in the fall at least!! We remarked on how many women were in the bands—all but the Anah Pipers from Bangor, who are from a Temple of Shriners from and appear in all the parades with their miniature cars or boats or whatever zooming around or on floats, raising money for children’s hospitals and other good causes—Anahs are all men.(They were the ones in bear-skin-type hats). One group had two ENORMOUS women—I am not exaggerating here—in their kilts with horizontal stripes….and another was a very funny motley crew of tubby –VERY tubby—youngish boy drummers, one VERY tall skinny drummer—literally an Ichabod Crane of a boy—an adams apple out to HERE—and one tiny little girl piper and then a whole lot of big men pipers and another large girl on the big bass drum—funny looking group.
Though the show was actually pretty nice and the place lovely and sky lovelier pale blue with a light cloud cover, it IS Maine in July—so the temperature was down to 60 and falling as the wind picked up –tourists in their shorts and bare feet were wrapping up in towels and blankets and finally bailing at about 7:45, when kids were complaining of cold. Those of us who know Maine better came with jackets and long pants—though even that wasn’t enough. Seethe with jealousy, those of you baking or steaming in summer heat!
Favorite crowd glimpse—a geeky boy of about 13 –sort of Harry Potter looking boy with funny, roundish glasses—wearing a T shirt that said, “ Mullet Removal Team” !!!!
Well—lots more ramblings—You are all too kind to read….. may these letters give you a taste of this foreign country of Downeast Maine.
Love, Mom/Robin
7/2/09 addendum
Addendum to the first Now and Again Notes from Maine
Sunday, July 5—Well, my wish came true—Agnes and I decided to go to Eastport for some of the 4th celebrations, hitting a few other towns on the way. We had a long and fun day, starting with those miniature lobster boats, which were meticulously made and tore around a lobster pound on Beal’s Island, just as advertised. The coast was completely socked in with pea soup fog, so happily the miniature boats have to be seen up close and the fog did not affect that, but the large lobster boats—real ones done up for racing—were not able to race—though Agnes and I sighted one dimly through the fog roaring down the reach between island and mainland Jonesport, hung with big round orange buoys looking like large balloons and full of people on the back deck whooping and hollering at a…yes, believe it—WATERSKIER off the back!!! He or she was needless to say wearing a wet suit!! Yee gods, what fortitude—or idiocy, depending on how you look at it. And what a sight! Lobster boat pulling water skier!
Jonesport was having “events”—mostly a group of people selling food to each other—great bargains on lobster and crab rolls, for sure! The road out was lined with more sellers, too and lots of people strolling up and down and houses and railings were decked with bunting—very festive. We resisted the crab and lobster rolls and continued on up the coast another 40 minutes past miles and miles of blueberry barrens, to Cutler (or Cahtlah, as my friend Warren used to call his hometown), yet another amazingly picturesque town –this one on slopes on either side of a beautiful bay full of lobster boats. We went there because the Congregational Church was having a lunch to benefit the Cutler Scholars’ Fund—we learned that the fund was founded about 4 years ago by “a gentleman from Florida who fell in love with Cutler and the people of Cutler” and wanted to give back. He started a fund to send Cutler students to college (more like he was trying to raise the standard of living and average amount of education in Cutler…) So he seeds the fund to the tune of 10K a year and the local Fund group raises more—last year they gave $23,000 divided among three young women at different colleges—one is a senior and going on to veterinary school, one is in culinary arts school and the other in business administration. The lady who told us about this is from Georgia herself and rolled her eyes and said it is the young women who take hold in college. The boys tend to fade after freshman year….
The lunch—barbecued pulled pork or chicken, home made baked beans, corn, cole slaw, dinner roll, berry shortcake—was DELICIOUS! (Isn’t this called “doing well by doing good?”) And the church where it was held still has its ORIGINAL pressed tin walls and ceiling all through the church!! Amazing that it hasn’t been replaced with fake wood paneling! The tin below the chair rail line had Grecian Urns in bas relief! So cool.
From Cahtlah, we headed north at last to Eastport, through more miles of blueberry barrens, arriving just as their parade ended. We parked across the street from Raye’s Condiments! Of course we went in and had a short tour—really just a look at the huge tubs and grinding stones that were found by the original owner in 1902 in New York—they are French quartz, but no one knows how old they really are. [SIDEBAR: the lady giving the tour said everyone puzzles over how they were brought to Eastport because each is about 5 feet in diameter and weighs a full ton—but all I could think of was how the blocks of granite for the Washington Monument—AND for the dock at the island—were brought from quarries up the Maine coast—and each was at least that big—so shipping huge stones was evidently not that unusual] The original mustard was made to to pack the sardines, which Eastport produced unbelievable amounts of until fairly recently. It was moved from the little factory to the packing plants on the water by train. According to every sign, Rayes produces the only stone ground mustard in the US now—and has won nearly every prize at the condiments contests in California—evidently a BIG deal. The fourth generation owners now make about 20 different flavors – really GOOD, too!!
Eastport is VERY interesting and picturesque in a run-down sort of way—it is reminiscent of Portland, with big late 19th century brick buildings where the shipping businesses were housed and warehouses lining the streets next to the port, plus fancy old bank buildings. Now these buildings are slowly being taken over and renovated by artists, and indeed as my neighbor Richard noted, there is a thriving art colony there—pottery, painting, sculpture of every type—gift stores full of expensive furnishings and oddments--one wonders WHO comes to Eastport and buys it all—certainly not the locals including the mostly impoverished Passamoquoddy Indians, whose reservation one must traverse to get into Eastport. Evidently there are LOTS of Canadians who come—the grumbling EXCELLENT professional waiter (up for the summer from Sarasota, FL) we had at a restaurant on the water said the Canadians do not tip because in Canada service is included in the total—his “partner” waiter had quit during the afternoon after being stiffed for the 6th time!!
I didn’t find Sarah Graves’ house, but the hardware store where she gets supplies for her renovations featured all 13 of her books in the window. She gives most of them titles having to do with tools and renovations.
Eastport is famous for being the easternmost city in the US—by a few yards east of Lubec as near as we could tell—and for being near the “Old Sow” whirlpool, out in the bay at the end of Deer Island—a large island. It is apparently the real thing that whirls and sucks down things when the tides go in and out—we didn’t get a boat to see it—next time. The vistas of pine-covered islands, boats, lovely inlets and bays and coves and salt marshes are breathtaking in all directions.
We looked at all the booths lining the streets (I was pondering some nice beaded bracelets being sold by a man who COULD have been a Native American, but turned out to be an Indigenous Ecuadoran from Boston…) and listened to a terrific steel band that was wearing T-shirts from Toronto—not sure that is where they are from. (I may have mentioned this in summers past, but this coast has more steel bands than you can count on two hands! Not sure why, but there are people who make the pans and teach classes. My friend Ann’s young son has just graduated from the little kids’ band to the intermediate band.) We had a couple of hours of weak sunshine—relief from the fog further east—and then the fog rolled back in with cold and damp and another fireworks display was cancelled due to fog (it was scheduled for early evening, too—before dark for some reason)Agnes and I have had two other 4ths together in fog too thick to see the fireworks! So we headed home—but on our way through Machias, (Mah Chigh-us for those of you who don’t know it) –which is about 45 minutes east and a little north of us in Steuben, the sky was clear and a lovely almost-full moon was coming up over the river and people were lining up for fireworks, so we parked—and a little later enjoyed a very respectable display out over the river. By the time we got back to Steuben, it was raining! Like we NEED rain!!!!
So no parade, but lots else and finally clear weather for fireworks. The erratic nature of the fog and clear skies is typical of the coast of Maine,-- everyone just sighs and shrugs.
Today it was breezy and sunny—got up to the 70’s!! I just kept my nose to several grindstones—writing, gardening, working in the house.
Oh well- -you all probably think I am nuts…
Love to all—Moon is full –looks like the original moonstone tonight- luminous, pearly color in a clear, light amethyst sky—with fireflies flickering along the shores of the bay—gorgeous!! Tomorrow am going to see the state’s yo-yo champion with the little neighbor kids from across the street, whose mother is Peruvian. Today one of them brought me a bouquet!! And then she played for almost three hours with the doll house and cowboy and Indian stuff I have out in the front bedroom—so cute!
Come see me in Maine!!
Sunday, July 5—Well, my wish came true—Agnes and I decided to go to Eastport for some of the 4th celebrations, hitting a few other towns on the way. We had a long and fun day, starting with those miniature lobster boats, which were meticulously made and tore around a lobster pound on Beal’s Island, just as advertised. The coast was completely socked in with pea soup fog, so happily the miniature boats have to be seen up close and the fog did not affect that, but the large lobster boats—real ones done up for racing—were not able to race—though Agnes and I sighted one dimly through the fog roaring down the reach between island and mainland Jonesport, hung with big round orange buoys looking like large balloons and full of people on the back deck whooping and hollering at a…yes, believe it—WATERSKIER off the back!!! He or she was needless to say wearing a wet suit!! Yee gods, what fortitude—or idiocy, depending on how you look at it. And what a sight! Lobster boat pulling water skier!
Jonesport was having “events”—mostly a group of people selling food to each other—great bargains on lobster and crab rolls, for sure! The road out was lined with more sellers, too and lots of people strolling up and down and houses and railings were decked with bunting—very festive. We resisted the crab and lobster rolls and continued on up the coast another 40 minutes past miles and miles of blueberry barrens, to Cutler (or Cahtlah, as my friend Warren used to call his hometown), yet another amazingly picturesque town –this one on slopes on either side of a beautiful bay full of lobster boats. We went there because the Congregational Church was having a lunch to benefit the Cutler Scholars’ Fund—we learned that the fund was founded about 4 years ago by “a gentleman from Florida who fell in love with Cutler and the people of Cutler” and wanted to give back. He started a fund to send Cutler students to college (more like he was trying to raise the standard of living and average amount of education in Cutler…) So he seeds the fund to the tune of 10K a year and the local Fund group raises more—last year they gave $23,000 divided among three young women at different colleges—one is a senior and going on to veterinary school, one is in culinary arts school and the other in business administration. The lady who told us about this is from Georgia herself and rolled her eyes and said it is the young women who take hold in college. The boys tend to fade after freshman year….
The lunch—barbecued pulled pork or chicken, home made baked beans, corn, cole slaw, dinner roll, berry shortcake—was DELICIOUS! (Isn’t this called “doing well by doing good?”) And the church where it was held still has its ORIGINAL pressed tin walls and ceiling all through the church!! Amazing that it hasn’t been replaced with fake wood paneling! The tin below the chair rail line had Grecian Urns in bas relief! So cool.
From Cahtlah, we headed north at last to Eastport, through more miles of blueberry barrens, arriving just as their parade ended. We parked across the street from Raye’s Condiments! Of course we went in and had a short tour—really just a look at the huge tubs and grinding stones that were found by the original owner in 1902 in New York—they are French quartz, but no one knows how old they really are. [SIDEBAR: the lady giving the tour said everyone puzzles over how they were brought to Eastport because each is about 5 feet in diameter and weighs a full ton—but all I could think of was how the blocks of granite for the Washington Monument—AND for the dock at the island—were brought from quarries up the Maine coast—and each was at least that big—so shipping huge stones was evidently not that unusual] The original mustard was made to to pack the sardines, which Eastport produced unbelievable amounts of until fairly recently. It was moved from the little factory to the packing plants on the water by train. According to every sign, Rayes produces the only stone ground mustard in the US now—and has won nearly every prize at the condiments contests in California—evidently a BIG deal. The fourth generation owners now make about 20 different flavors – really GOOD, too!!
Eastport is VERY interesting and picturesque in a run-down sort of way—it is reminiscent of Portland, with big late 19th century brick buildings where the shipping businesses were housed and warehouses lining the streets next to the port, plus fancy old bank buildings. Now these buildings are slowly being taken over and renovated by artists, and indeed as my neighbor Richard noted, there is a thriving art colony there—pottery, painting, sculpture of every type—gift stores full of expensive furnishings and oddments--one wonders WHO comes to Eastport and buys it all—certainly not the locals including the mostly impoverished Passamoquoddy Indians, whose reservation one must traverse to get into Eastport. Evidently there are LOTS of Canadians who come—the grumbling EXCELLENT professional waiter (up for the summer from Sarasota, FL) we had at a restaurant on the water said the Canadians do not tip because in Canada service is included in the total—his “partner” waiter had quit during the afternoon after being stiffed for the 6th time!!
I didn’t find Sarah Graves’ house, but the hardware store where she gets supplies for her renovations featured all 13 of her books in the window. She gives most of them titles having to do with tools and renovations.
Eastport is famous for being the easternmost city in the US—by a few yards east of Lubec as near as we could tell—and for being near the “Old Sow” whirlpool, out in the bay at the end of Deer Island—a large island. It is apparently the real thing that whirls and sucks down things when the tides go in and out—we didn’t get a boat to see it—next time. The vistas of pine-covered islands, boats, lovely inlets and bays and coves and salt marshes are breathtaking in all directions.
We looked at all the booths lining the streets (I was pondering some nice beaded bracelets being sold by a man who COULD have been a Native American, but turned out to be an Indigenous Ecuadoran from Boston…) and listened to a terrific steel band that was wearing T-shirts from Toronto—not sure that is where they are from. (I may have mentioned this in summers past, but this coast has more steel bands than you can count on two hands! Not sure why, but there are people who make the pans and teach classes. My friend Ann’s young son has just graduated from the little kids’ band to the intermediate band.) We had a couple of hours of weak sunshine—relief from the fog further east—and then the fog rolled back in with cold and damp and another fireworks display was cancelled due to fog (it was scheduled for early evening, too—before dark for some reason)Agnes and I have had two other 4ths together in fog too thick to see the fireworks! So we headed home—but on our way through Machias, (Mah Chigh-us for those of you who don’t know it) –which is about 45 minutes east and a little north of us in Steuben, the sky was clear and a lovely almost-full moon was coming up over the river and people were lining up for fireworks, so we parked—and a little later enjoyed a very respectable display out over the river. By the time we got back to Steuben, it was raining! Like we NEED rain!!!!
So no parade, but lots else and finally clear weather for fireworks. The erratic nature of the fog and clear skies is typical of the coast of Maine,-- everyone just sighs and shrugs.
Today it was breezy and sunny—got up to the 70’s!! I just kept my nose to several grindstones—writing, gardening, working in the house.
Oh well- -you all probably think I am nuts…
Love to all—Moon is full –looks like the original moonstone tonight- luminous, pearly color in a clear, light amethyst sky—with fireflies flickering along the shores of the bay—gorgeous!! Tomorrow am going to see the state’s yo-yo champion with the little neighbor kids from across the street, whose mother is Peruvian. Today one of them brought me a bouquet!! And then she played for almost three hours with the doll house and cowboy and Indian stuff I have out in the front bedroom—so cute!
Come see me in Maine!!
7/2/09
Now and Again Notes from Maine—Thursday, July 2
Hi all—Keeping in touch this way (and I KNOW, I should have a Facebook Page, but am resisting getting sucked into that right now—soon, I promise).
Maine is COOL and DAMP!! June almost set records for the rainiest June –think it got to 4th maybe 3rd rainiest—and today it is in the 50’s and misting. Gardeners are fit to be tied –things rotting in the fields—but I say it is a nice relief from the heat of DC!! The last two days the mist burned off by midday and we had nice sun and breezes (remember how it did that on the island?)—and now it is lightening up, so may be are in luck again today. Downeast always has its own weather system.
As usual, it took a couple of days to recover from life elsewhere, plus this time I was extra tired from dealing with the animals and motels and the exertion over the weekend of helping with Miriam’s stuff—getting it loaded and into a storage unit. Need I say that the U-Haul truck and the storage unit made me shiver with difficult memories!! BUT—I haven’t lost my touch at loading trucks and packing storage units, have I Merm & Jer?
It is always worth the effort to get here, though. The rushing stream, croaking bull frogs and flickerin fire flies are soothing to the soul. My garden is doing nicely—all the things I rammed in last fall have come up and are blooming—white Siberian irises, day lilies, a hydrangea (not blooming yet), lots of hostas… and I put in annuals when I was here Memorial Day weekend and my little neighbor girl watered when it wasn’t raining, so they are trying to thrive despite the soggy weather—flower boxes all ready for the deck.
Neighbor Ray Martin, inspired by the workmen at the house on the other side of me who cleaned the slope down to the river of the alders blocking the view, decided to continue to clean alders on his land—turns out our property line is much further over than I thought, so he is getting a lot of what I thought I would have to deal with—plus he is doing some of mine, too. He is working from the river side of the alders towards the houses, so there is still a thicket of alders keeping him from view from the houses. Once in a while I look out my window and see alders moving and toppling but can’t see him—I told him the scene reminds me of Burnam (sp?) woods in MacBeth!!
To get in the spirit of things, I grabbed my new set of loppers and began trimming all the saplings wedged in between the huge granite blocks along my stretch of river. I have done almost three hours of work and it looks terrific. The view up river is now clear and prepared for when the alders are gone. Ray is a great inspiration himself—works quietly and methodically—he says he likes to use loppers and have just the noises of the river, the wind and the birds keeping him company. And he stacks the brush very neatly. He will burn when he can get a permit—or perhaps in the winter.
And the river is ROARING what with all the rain. It is a short river, really, coming about 10-12 miles from a set of lakes directly north of us, and everything is full to overflowing, so the river is making like Niagara, foaming over the rocks and churning up the pond.
The renovations on the house next door are coming along—I have been over twice to ogle the work—though it looks like a little house, it is actually big—4 bedrooms and a big room that is becoming a bathroom upstairs and a bedroom and bath down, with a huge great room—living and dining—that has a fireplace and windows overlooking the river. Kitchen is big, too. But what a lot of work! Some ceilings are still not done and every single surface has had to be redone after wiring and plumbing. They have put on new siding—pale yellow and white windows and doors. Very pretty. Today there is a whole brigade of workmen working on electric garage doors. I am so jealous that they can get all the renovating done in a fell swoop. A neighbor told me today the house was sold in foreclosure, so was bought at a song. Explains why they had so much to put in it….
The other local news is that a couple is lobstering off the Steuben wharf—they threw up a little makeshift dock on the old wharf side and sure enough, there are wire traps piled up there. Agnes says they have put out 50 traps. Sort of nice after it being abandoned for so long.
Small towns have their major advantages. Last night I went into Milbridge (next town up that has some commercial activity) to see the movie Ice Age: Dawn of the Age of Dinosaurs. I was early so went across the street and did some grocery shopping in 10 minutes, parked at the bank right across from the movie theater and went in at 7:20 The lady at the ticket booth was out of 5’s and 10’s and just as I got in the short line she hollered at her husband across the aisle at the popcorn machine and he handed over a fistful of bills to some little girl in line and asked her to hand them to the lady…!! The line for popcorn was long because the man makes one kettleful at a time, so we had to wait for our hot, fresh popcorn since one kettle made about one large size bag! The wait for the line to get popcorn meant the movie started late, since the same man runs the projector! Ticket, medium popcorn, medium drink for under $10.00—can’t beat it!! And the movie was hilarious!!
This was my second time to the theater and I am always amused by the step ladders stacked up to the right of the screen and the stained ceiling and other informal touches—but also grateful for the ORIGINAL fittings—curtain-hung little alcoves, red wainscoting with white stenciling under the stage area, original seats and ticket booth and a lot of movie memorabilia, my favorite being a page from a Seattle newspaper from 1939 hailing the opening of the Wizard of Oz.
My friend Agnes is here for the summer so she and I have already combed the events calendars and have a host of things marked to go to—concerts, plays, fairs etc. Looks like we will go to Jonesport, further east on the coast, to watch model lobster boat races on Saturday morning. The boatmakers on Beals Island, which is right off Jonesport, evidently have a long tradition of making finely crafted miniature lobster boats that are run by remote control—nice Maine variation of the sailboats on the pond in Central Park, don’t you think?? Agnes wants to do fireworks in Bar Harbor, which is where we were 4 years ago when I first decided to buy my house.
The funnest part of being here is watching my cats, Helen and Sissy. They are 7 months and in 7th heaven—they are into EVERY nook and cranny of the house and explore the gardens daily, chasing bugs and stalking anything that moves. Last night I took Lily out to the side yard before bed and the cats showed up, so all three played chase for a good 15 minutes. Lily runs flat out and cannot catch them—then they race up an apple tree and turn around and meow at her and me!! Then one will come down and rub Lily and wind a tail around her neck and off they go again! They also love going out on the deck and playing on the deck stairs, which are a full storey tall. At night, all three—two cats and little dog—cuddle up with me in bed. The cats come and stand on my chest and rub my face when they think it is time to get up. Better than an alarm….!!
I had a nice visit with the Fishes (Anna’s Jason’s family)—Marc is off today to a new job at a school in Queens, so I was glad to have seen him if only briefly. Beatrice and Alicia (Jason’s youngest sister) and I will have more time to get together, I hope. The Fishes have a grandchild—now about 5 months old—and will go to Texas for his christening in July—and for their daughter’s hooding/PhD graduation—Imagine! She did a Ph.D., a baby and a new job all in one year!!! Makes me look like a real slacker, doesn’t it???
I just saw our neighbor Richard (one of the ageing gay couple who have the cutest cottage on Village Road, bar none) who says he would like to sell and move to Eastport, ME—which is on the Passamaquody Bay between Maine and New Brunswick, north of Lubec, where you cross to Campobello. For those of you who remember, a year ago I was reading the mysteries of Sarah Graves, who sets her stories in Eastport, where she and her husband are renovating a large old house. I was already intrigued by Eastport from those. And in last week’s Ellsworth newspaper, there was an interesting article about Raye’s condiments, particularly the stone ground mustard, which is made in Eastport. It was in the paper because Olympia Snow, senator from Maine, gave some to the Obamas when she learned Barack loves mustard on his burgers. Richard says Eastport is a beehive of artistic and cultural activity. I am sure I will get there for a visit this summer.
Well, Karen M, doesn’t look like you will get up here, and Lisa B, not sure about you—would love to have a visitor or two, but I have a LOT of writing to do if I AM going to finish this dratted degree in the next year!
More when the news warrants—bullfrogs still croak at night and the fireflies are thick as usual. Miriam loaded me up with stuff from her cupboards, so there is lots of food, should anyone make it up! Love to all, Mom/Robin
Hi all—Keeping in touch this way (and I KNOW, I should have a Facebook Page, but am resisting getting sucked into that right now—soon, I promise).
Maine is COOL and DAMP!! June almost set records for the rainiest June –think it got to 4th maybe 3rd rainiest—and today it is in the 50’s and misting. Gardeners are fit to be tied –things rotting in the fields—but I say it is a nice relief from the heat of DC!! The last two days the mist burned off by midday and we had nice sun and breezes (remember how it did that on the island?)—and now it is lightening up, so may be are in luck again today. Downeast always has its own weather system.
As usual, it took a couple of days to recover from life elsewhere, plus this time I was extra tired from dealing with the animals and motels and the exertion over the weekend of helping with Miriam’s stuff—getting it loaded and into a storage unit. Need I say that the U-Haul truck and the storage unit made me shiver with difficult memories!! BUT—I haven’t lost my touch at loading trucks and packing storage units, have I Merm & Jer?
It is always worth the effort to get here, though. The rushing stream, croaking bull frogs and flickerin fire flies are soothing to the soul. My garden is doing nicely—all the things I rammed in last fall have come up and are blooming—white Siberian irises, day lilies, a hydrangea (not blooming yet), lots of hostas… and I put in annuals when I was here Memorial Day weekend and my little neighbor girl watered when it wasn’t raining, so they are trying to thrive despite the soggy weather—flower boxes all ready for the deck.
Neighbor Ray Martin, inspired by the workmen at the house on the other side of me who cleaned the slope down to the river of the alders blocking the view, decided to continue to clean alders on his land—turns out our property line is much further over than I thought, so he is getting a lot of what I thought I would have to deal with—plus he is doing some of mine, too. He is working from the river side of the alders towards the houses, so there is still a thicket of alders keeping him from view from the houses. Once in a while I look out my window and see alders moving and toppling but can’t see him—I told him the scene reminds me of Burnam (sp?) woods in MacBeth!!
To get in the spirit of things, I grabbed my new set of loppers and began trimming all the saplings wedged in between the huge granite blocks along my stretch of river. I have done almost three hours of work and it looks terrific. The view up river is now clear and prepared for when the alders are gone. Ray is a great inspiration himself—works quietly and methodically—he says he likes to use loppers and have just the noises of the river, the wind and the birds keeping him company. And he stacks the brush very neatly. He will burn when he can get a permit—or perhaps in the winter.
And the river is ROARING what with all the rain. It is a short river, really, coming about 10-12 miles from a set of lakes directly north of us, and everything is full to overflowing, so the river is making like Niagara, foaming over the rocks and churning up the pond.
The renovations on the house next door are coming along—I have been over twice to ogle the work—though it looks like a little house, it is actually big—4 bedrooms and a big room that is becoming a bathroom upstairs and a bedroom and bath down, with a huge great room—living and dining—that has a fireplace and windows overlooking the river. Kitchen is big, too. But what a lot of work! Some ceilings are still not done and every single surface has had to be redone after wiring and plumbing. They have put on new siding—pale yellow and white windows and doors. Very pretty. Today there is a whole brigade of workmen working on electric garage doors. I am so jealous that they can get all the renovating done in a fell swoop. A neighbor told me today the house was sold in foreclosure, so was bought at a song. Explains why they had so much to put in it….
The other local news is that a couple is lobstering off the Steuben wharf—they threw up a little makeshift dock on the old wharf side and sure enough, there are wire traps piled up there. Agnes says they have put out 50 traps. Sort of nice after it being abandoned for so long.
Small towns have their major advantages. Last night I went into Milbridge (next town up that has some commercial activity) to see the movie Ice Age: Dawn of the Age of Dinosaurs. I was early so went across the street and did some grocery shopping in 10 minutes, parked at the bank right across from the movie theater and went in at 7:20 The lady at the ticket booth was out of 5’s and 10’s and just as I got in the short line she hollered at her husband across the aisle at the popcorn machine and he handed over a fistful of bills to some little girl in line and asked her to hand them to the lady…!! The line for popcorn was long because the man makes one kettleful at a time, so we had to wait for our hot, fresh popcorn since one kettle made about one large size bag! The wait for the line to get popcorn meant the movie started late, since the same man runs the projector! Ticket, medium popcorn, medium drink for under $10.00—can’t beat it!! And the movie was hilarious!!
This was my second time to the theater and I am always amused by the step ladders stacked up to the right of the screen and the stained ceiling and other informal touches—but also grateful for the ORIGINAL fittings—curtain-hung little alcoves, red wainscoting with white stenciling under the stage area, original seats and ticket booth and a lot of movie memorabilia, my favorite being a page from a Seattle newspaper from 1939 hailing the opening of the Wizard of Oz.
My friend Agnes is here for the summer so she and I have already combed the events calendars and have a host of things marked to go to—concerts, plays, fairs etc. Looks like we will go to Jonesport, further east on the coast, to watch model lobster boat races on Saturday morning. The boatmakers on Beals Island, which is right off Jonesport, evidently have a long tradition of making finely crafted miniature lobster boats that are run by remote control—nice Maine variation of the sailboats on the pond in Central Park, don’t you think?? Agnes wants to do fireworks in Bar Harbor, which is where we were 4 years ago when I first decided to buy my house.
The funnest part of being here is watching my cats, Helen and Sissy. They are 7 months and in 7th heaven—they are into EVERY nook and cranny of the house and explore the gardens daily, chasing bugs and stalking anything that moves. Last night I took Lily out to the side yard before bed and the cats showed up, so all three played chase for a good 15 minutes. Lily runs flat out and cannot catch them—then they race up an apple tree and turn around and meow at her and me!! Then one will come down and rub Lily and wind a tail around her neck and off they go again! They also love going out on the deck and playing on the deck stairs, which are a full storey tall. At night, all three—two cats and little dog—cuddle up with me in bed. The cats come and stand on my chest and rub my face when they think it is time to get up. Better than an alarm….!!
I had a nice visit with the Fishes (Anna’s Jason’s family)—Marc is off today to a new job at a school in Queens, so I was glad to have seen him if only briefly. Beatrice and Alicia (Jason’s youngest sister) and I will have more time to get together, I hope. The Fishes have a grandchild—now about 5 months old—and will go to Texas for his christening in July—and for their daughter’s hooding/PhD graduation—Imagine! She did a Ph.D., a baby and a new job all in one year!!! Makes me look like a real slacker, doesn’t it???
I just saw our neighbor Richard (one of the ageing gay couple who have the cutest cottage on Village Road, bar none) who says he would like to sell and move to Eastport, ME—which is on the Passamaquody Bay between Maine and New Brunswick, north of Lubec, where you cross to Campobello. For those of you who remember, a year ago I was reading the mysteries of Sarah Graves, who sets her stories in Eastport, where she and her husband are renovating a large old house. I was already intrigued by Eastport from those. And in last week’s Ellsworth newspaper, there was an interesting article about Raye’s condiments, particularly the stone ground mustard, which is made in Eastport. It was in the paper because Olympia Snow, senator from Maine, gave some to the Obamas when she learned Barack loves mustard on his burgers. Richard says Eastport is a beehive of artistic and cultural activity. I am sure I will get there for a visit this summer.
Well, Karen M, doesn’t look like you will get up here, and Lisa B, not sure about you—would love to have a visitor or two, but I have a LOT of writing to do if I AM going to finish this dratted degree in the next year!
More when the news warrants—bullfrogs still croak at night and the fireflies are thick as usual. Miriam loaded me up with stuff from her cupboards, so there is lots of food, should anyone make it up! Love to all, Mom/Robin
9/29/08
Hi family units-- HOORAY!!!!! SOMETHING WORKED!! The Verizon guy came to install new jacks in the house and found one that worked, rewired it for my office and did not charge me for that!! At last I have internet at HOME!
And I have decided to suck it up and call it home at last. The family clock is up at last, so Richard is himself again. (Do you girls remember that?? It was an expression used by my grandma's neighbor in Humboldt. She would clean her house and arrange everything and then come over and announce to my grandma that "Richard was himself again.." No one ever knew who Richard was and why he was himself, but but it came to mean things are as they should be when before they were topsy turvy.)
Now I am really pining for the rest of my stuff which is stashed in Wisconsin. Maybe November?? I have a guest room and lots of room so I HOPE someone will come stay with me sometime. It was clear THAT was not going to happen in Wisconsin.....
The trash has stopped falling from upstairs--though I am at an uneasy truce with that woman since I KNOW it was she who dumped my huge pot of black-eyed susans in the dumpster last week.....she is pissed because I sicced her grandmother on her for throwing poopy diapers out the window towards--but not into--the uncovered trash bins. I also told the building manager that trash was coming out because the windows on the second floor don't have screens or bars-- a giant code violation since there are babies up there who could fall out. Maybe she called that lady, too......anyway, I was punished for something. Life in the 'hood....
I have been waiting for a month for a cover to be put on over the fluorescent light in my bedroom--the maintenance man came last week and left stuff strewn all over--hasn't been back. Today one of his helpers came down to get water while he is working in another unit. He says the maintenance guy has gone to Italy for a week. Humph.....
I am going to use this e-mail for family and friends, so change from the Lesley one, please-- I will reserve that for business and Lesley stuff and am going to essentially ignore my AOL account. It has become so cumbersome and full of junk--though the Lesley account too is full of junk.
Hurricane Ivan stayed out to sea while going past Downeast Maine, so the neighbors said it rained a lot but not that much wind. They all looked after my stuff and my house--such treasures! (the neighbors, I mean!)
Come on fam-- lets "talk" on e-mail-- who has been reading what, doing what, listening to what? I just read "An Uncommon Reader" by Allen Bennett, who has written LOTS of things you know, including the play and screenplay "History Boys"---this little book is a hilarious send up of the Queen stumbling on a mobile library and becoming a reader instead of a doer. It is priceless. Just started a large volume of stories by Somerset Maugham as a change of pace. Before that, read " The Art of Mending"--which was OK--started off good, better in the middle and then really fizzled.
Comments on NPR about the campaign say that some Republican pundits were so disgusted at the Palin-Kouric interview last week that they are calling for her to step down. We know that won't happen because McCain is nothing if not stubborn, but the dew is off the rose!! Meanwhile Tina Fey is skewering her so well people are gasping!
Much love to you all-- keep in touch- I am lonely from you, as George Bennett always said. BTW-- October marks Aunt Carolie and Uncle Bill's 50th Wedding Anniversary-- nothing much is going to happen because A) Uncle Bill refuses to acknowledge it in any way and B) their kids can't decide on anything-- but WE can all send lovely cards and wishes-- Aunt Carolie would deeply appreciate it-- she is feeling VERY sad/bad about Bill's being so curmudgeonly about this. Kitty, too. I will verify the date and let you all know so you can send some thing PULEEZE. It is also Aunt Carolie's 73rd birthday on the 24th-- My 64th and Uncle Bud's 71st a week late. Kitty's birthday on Wed, but not sure which. WHOOO-- getting up there, aren't we??
Love you all --Mama/Robin
And I have decided to suck it up and call it home at last. The family clock is up at last, so Richard is himself again. (Do you girls remember that?? It was an expression used by my grandma's neighbor in Humboldt. She would clean her house and arrange everything and then come over and announce to my grandma that "Richard was himself again.." No one ever knew who Richard was and why he was himself, but but it came to mean things are as they should be when before they were topsy turvy.)
Now I am really pining for the rest of my stuff which is stashed in Wisconsin. Maybe November?? I have a guest room and lots of room so I HOPE someone will come stay with me sometime. It was clear THAT was not going to happen in Wisconsin.....
The trash has stopped falling from upstairs--though I am at an uneasy truce with that woman since I KNOW it was she who dumped my huge pot of black-eyed susans in the dumpster last week.....she is pissed because I sicced her grandmother on her for throwing poopy diapers out the window towards--but not into--the uncovered trash bins. I also told the building manager that trash was coming out because the windows on the second floor don't have screens or bars-- a giant code violation since there are babies up there who could fall out. Maybe she called that lady, too......anyway, I was punished for something. Life in the 'hood....
I have been waiting for a month for a cover to be put on over the fluorescent light in my bedroom--the maintenance man came last week and left stuff strewn all over--hasn't been back. Today one of his helpers came down to get water while he is working in another unit. He says the maintenance guy has gone to Italy for a week. Humph.....
I am going to use this e-mail for family and friends, so change from the Lesley one, please-- I will reserve that for business and Lesley stuff and am going to essentially ignore my AOL account. It has become so cumbersome and full of junk--though the Lesley account too is full of junk.
Hurricane Ivan stayed out to sea while going past Downeast Maine, so the neighbors said it rained a lot but not that much wind. They all looked after my stuff and my house--such treasures! (the neighbors, I mean!)
Come on fam-- lets "talk" on e-mail-- who has been reading what, doing what, listening to what? I just read "An Uncommon Reader" by Allen Bennett, who has written LOTS of things you know, including the play and screenplay "History Boys"---this little book is a hilarious send up of the Queen stumbling on a mobile library and becoming a reader instead of a doer. It is priceless. Just started a large volume of stories by Somerset Maugham as a change of pace. Before that, read " The Art of Mending"--which was OK--started off good, better in the middle and then really fizzled.
Comments on NPR about the campaign say that some Republican pundits were so disgusted at the Palin-Kouric interview last week that they are calling for her to step down. We know that won't happen because McCain is nothing if not stubborn, but the dew is off the rose!! Meanwhile Tina Fey is skewering her so well people are gasping!
Much love to you all-- keep in touch- I am lonely from you, as George Bennett always said. BTW-- October marks Aunt Carolie and Uncle Bill's 50th Wedding Anniversary-- nothing much is going to happen because A) Uncle Bill refuses to acknowledge it in any way and B) their kids can't decide on anything-- but WE can all send lovely cards and wishes-- Aunt Carolie would deeply appreciate it-- she is feeling VERY sad/bad about Bill's being so curmudgeonly about this. Kitty, too. I will verify the date and let you all know so you can send some thing PULEEZE. It is also Aunt Carolie's 73rd birthday on the 24th-- My 64th and Uncle Bud's 71st a week late. Kitty's birthday on Wed, but not sure which. WHOOO-- getting up there, aren't we??
Love you all --Mama/Robin
6/13/08
Hi my sweets-- I decided I had better catch up with you all--I started to do this yesterday morning, had a brain fart and got distracted by something else--remembered on my dog walk last night.
As you may have heard, much of Wisconsin is under water--we are not threatened here, but the major highways near Madison are closed this morning, about 14 dams are threatening to give way--and more rain on the way. What a mess--but not nearly as bad as Iowa. Poor folks there are REALLY drowning-- if you haven't looked, take a look at Cedar Rapids Iowa, which is now one big river!!
I am writing with one hand and packing with the other. I have one more writing deadline Sunday. Meantime, Anna G and I are going on a little outing this weekend-- what we had promised each other to do when I was moving here but never got around to. Nothing like a deadline to clarify things! (As you ALL know!!)
We are going to Door County-(the thumb of Wisconsin, which sticks up into Lake Michigan-- it is literally the Cape Cod of the Midwest--money, art, gorgeous scenery--no Provincetown, though!!) ( which ones of you were along when Babbo and I and--was it Anna and Miriam??--went to Door County with Barbie and Dave when they were still mobile? We went to a drive-in theater, remember??) Anna g and I are going to look at the yellow lady slippers, which bloom in profusion there-- and lots of art galleries and antique shops, I am sure. Lily will stay next door.
I am going to have a moving sale next weekend--I go to Rochester, NY for one day of work- Thursday to Friday-fortunately, I got a flight in and out of Wausau with a terrific schedule so I will only be gone one night--then work like a fiend to get my sale going. It will be clothes and extra kitchen stuff, etc. Miriam-- are you interested in cobalt blue ceramic kitchen jars--the kind that clamp shut and have a wooden scoop on the side? I have a set of 5--the big one holds a full bag of ground coffee--the littlest one is about 1/4 cup--tiny--for spice or salt or something. I got them in Columbus to bring to this house, but did not use them much. They would be good for storing tea or raisins or small amounts of rice etc. (I am assuming that Jules, you don't want more stuff, and Anna ditto.--no family items or other interesting stuff--just excess)
My move will be complicated==no news there, huh? I rented ANOTHER storage unit-- I am guessing about the 15th?? since Fanny's stuff in 1993?? I will store about 2/3 of my stuff here and go to DC with a smallish truck and my houseplants. I don't have a place to live yet, so am thinking I might find an English basement or something month to month while I look for something more substantial for my stuff. The Robinsons are moving to Easton MD and have a HUGE house in a retirement community sitting empty. They told me I could put my stuff in their garage because FIRST I am going to help Moomie settle into her apartment and THEN I am going to MAINE for July 4 to early August. I start work on the 11th of August. On my way north, I will be able to kiss Miriam for HER 25th and hug Anna for HER 30th!! YAY!!!!
I will have to travel twice while in ME, but oh well-- I fly out of Bangor, just under 1 hour from my house----much less hassle than most of my trips from here, where I travel to Milwaukee (3 + hours), Minneapolis (same) or Appleton (1 h.5 hrs)-- it is actually rare that I can fly out of Wausau-- so expensive.
As usual, moving has its poignancies-- my gardens which I labored over last summer are lovely--daisies and iris, ferns and hostas--and the house's advantages, which are many, are barking at me. But DC calls. And INCOME. Hoo boy-- I will be glad for regular income.
The good news is that NY state is expanding my consulting there, and I made arrangements with the school to be able to take a day or two every now and then to go up and do that. I can take the train!!--Or even drive== the new gig is in southern Westchester County--about 4 hours from DC. That extra $$ will help me pay down my huge tax bill and pay what I hope is my last year of school!! (did I tell you all I have a doctoral writing coach all lined up in DC?? A lady who works at the school where I will be-- we will meet bi-weekly as I did with Mary to keep my writing on track.)
Needless to say I am cringeing at the price of gas and what it will cost to drive a truck that gets 8 miles/gallon....I was going to ask Mike Gresch to help me move again, but decided that towing my car would save a LOT on gas!! (yes it will increase consumption on the truck, but not as much as filling the car would be--it now costs me $55 to fill my car-where I used to be able to fill it for $20 or under. Sigh.)
Are you all still psyched about Obama? It is just an incredible thought that in my lifetime a black person may be in the White House. I think I will move over the border to Canada if McCain is elected. Another old white man. I was disappointed, though, by Obama's choice of Jim Johnson to head up his VP committee- Johnson is deep in the doodoo of Washington politics and scheming and has been so for decades. WHY Obama did that I cannot understand. I wrote an outraged message to his campaign and said if he wanted votes of folks like me , he had better revisit his motto of change we can believe in...can't believe it if the Jim Johnsons of the world are part of his team. Happily Johnson saw the train wreck coming and resigned.
I survived the two weeks with Aunt Carolie-- barely. Fortunately for both of us, I was gone pretty much 5 days out of that time, and while I was gone, Anna G and her friend Jan looked after Aunt C--got her out, took her to yard sales and thrift shops etc. She had a good time in the end, but we literally nearly killed each other the first few days. She is SO negative it is unbelievable. When challenged on that or any of a dozen other things she just snarls and lashes out--says her family chews her up enough about it--I don't have a right to-- and actually PUT MONEY on the counter one day, saying now she was a cash paying customer and I could not be rude to her!!! This after she growled at me when I walked in the door from walking Lily, saying " Well YOU didn't go very far!!" Like it mattered!! I asked her why she couldn't just ask " Did you have a nice walk?" and then she said I was being rude!!!
Anyway-- a lecture from our Aunt Jeannie to her while I was out seemed to get her into a new place. Jeannie apparently told her to cherish this sister time together--it was rare and might never happen again-- and Carolie seems to have listened. After that it was easier-- though her passive aggression and moodiness did not change much. We did have a lovely day a week ago driving back to Minneapolis to George's-- we stopped at a dozen yard sales and junk shops and ate brats from a brat fry raising money for a local fire department, etc. Other than the occasional meltdown in the car over not being able to find something, it was good.
It was fun to see George and Lisa, who now live in a lovely house in a gorgeous subdivision north of Mpls. Mitchell is tall, gangly and adorable-- heading to the Marines at the end of the month if he passes his GED. He has a decommissioned police car for his wheels and he just loves it. It still has the safety screen divider behind the front seat, and looks like a police car. People give it a long second look when he parks in a parking lot!
We watched a movie at George's called Death at a Funeral--directed by Frank Oz--has any of you seen it?? It is without doubt one of the funniest movies I have EVER seen. The British struggling with stiff upper lip at a funeral gone completely mad. Came out in 2007. If you haven't seen it, do rent it-- Miriam--it would be a GREAT addition to your vacation on the Vineyard!!
I am listening to books on tape while I walk and pack-- the best so far is a Patrick O"Brian -- one of his long series about sailing ships in the early 19th century-- amazing historical fiction extremely well read. (The Mundies read their way through the O'Brian series as a family....!) I have Jhumpa Lahiri's latest group of short stories to listen to ==and then Milton Friedman-"The World is Flat"-- economics in the 20th century. I am now listening to a junky novel called the Venetian Betrayal about a mystery around the whereabouts of the remains of Alexander the Great-- the historical part is terrific. Unfortunately, the narrator feels it necessary to add extra melodrama to the reading.. yuck.
Well one more piece of good news-- the Gresches have a new grand daughter-- Kate Elise-- born last night at 8 45 PM and weighing in at 8 lbs and 20.25 inches-- nice healthy fat baby. It was another tough pregnancy for Kristi, who had to have bed rest for over 10 weeks--second time-- I think they won't have any more kids! Anna is euphoric to have a little girl to buy things for!!
Love to all MY baby girls-- all hitting milestones this year-- 35/30/25--wish we could all party together to celebrate. Remember those wonderful huge family celebrations in our backyard in DC in June? Grandpa's birthday(tomorrow) Father's Day, Moomie and Anna's birthday's, Mormor's Birthday-- sometimes even Jer's-- all thrown into one ginormous bash. Wonderful memories.
Congratulations to Moomie on sailing through the boards!! On to rotations and North Hampton.
Jules-- fill us in on wedding plans-- I am feeling outside of that loop!
'Na-- did you get to set up a bench in Drew's basement??
Well--back to my writing--I love you all, my dear daughters. Mama
As you may have heard, much of Wisconsin is under water--we are not threatened here, but the major highways near Madison are closed this morning, about 14 dams are threatening to give way--and more rain on the way. What a mess--but not nearly as bad as Iowa. Poor folks there are REALLY drowning-- if you haven't looked, take a look at Cedar Rapids Iowa, which is now one big river!!
I am writing with one hand and packing with the other. I have one more writing deadline Sunday. Meantime, Anna G and I are going on a little outing this weekend-- what we had promised each other to do when I was moving here but never got around to. Nothing like a deadline to clarify things! (As you ALL know!!)
We are going to Door County-(the thumb of Wisconsin, which sticks up into Lake Michigan-- it is literally the Cape Cod of the Midwest--money, art, gorgeous scenery--no Provincetown, though!!) ( which ones of you were along when Babbo and I and--was it Anna and Miriam??--went to Door County with Barbie and Dave when they were still mobile? We went to a drive-in theater, remember??) Anna g and I are going to look at the yellow lady slippers, which bloom in profusion there-- and lots of art galleries and antique shops, I am sure. Lily will stay next door.
I am going to have a moving sale next weekend--I go to Rochester, NY for one day of work- Thursday to Friday-fortunately, I got a flight in and out of Wausau with a terrific schedule so I will only be gone one night--then work like a fiend to get my sale going. It will be clothes and extra kitchen stuff, etc. Miriam-- are you interested in cobalt blue ceramic kitchen jars--the kind that clamp shut and have a wooden scoop on the side? I have a set of 5--the big one holds a full bag of ground coffee--the littlest one is about 1/4 cup--tiny--for spice or salt or something. I got them in Columbus to bring to this house, but did not use them much. They would be good for storing tea or raisins or small amounts of rice etc. (I am assuming that Jules, you don't want more stuff, and Anna ditto.--no family items or other interesting stuff--just excess)
My move will be complicated==no news there, huh? I rented ANOTHER storage unit-- I am guessing about the 15th?? since Fanny's stuff in 1993?? I will store about 2/3 of my stuff here and go to DC with a smallish truck and my houseplants. I don't have a place to live yet, so am thinking I might find an English basement or something month to month while I look for something more substantial for my stuff. The Robinsons are moving to Easton MD and have a HUGE house in a retirement community sitting empty. They told me I could put my stuff in their garage because FIRST I am going to help Moomie settle into her apartment and THEN I am going to MAINE for July 4 to early August. I start work on the 11th of August. On my way north, I will be able to kiss Miriam for HER 25th and hug Anna for HER 30th!! YAY!!!!
I will have to travel twice while in ME, but oh well-- I fly out of Bangor, just under 1 hour from my house----much less hassle than most of my trips from here, where I travel to Milwaukee (3 + hours), Minneapolis (same) or Appleton (1 h.5 hrs)-- it is actually rare that I can fly out of Wausau-- so expensive.
As usual, moving has its poignancies-- my gardens which I labored over last summer are lovely--daisies and iris, ferns and hostas--and the house's advantages, which are many, are barking at me. But DC calls. And INCOME. Hoo boy-- I will be glad for regular income.
The good news is that NY state is expanding my consulting there, and I made arrangements with the school to be able to take a day or two every now and then to go up and do that. I can take the train!!--Or even drive== the new gig is in southern Westchester County--about 4 hours from DC. That extra $$ will help me pay down my huge tax bill and pay what I hope is my last year of school!! (did I tell you all I have a doctoral writing coach all lined up in DC?? A lady who works at the school where I will be-- we will meet bi-weekly as I did with Mary to keep my writing on track.)
Needless to say I am cringeing at the price of gas and what it will cost to drive a truck that gets 8 miles/gallon....I was going to ask Mike Gresch to help me move again, but decided that towing my car would save a LOT on gas!! (yes it will increase consumption on the truck, but not as much as filling the car would be--it now costs me $55 to fill my car-where I used to be able to fill it for $20 or under. Sigh.)
Are you all still psyched about Obama? It is just an incredible thought that in my lifetime a black person may be in the White House. I think I will move over the border to Canada if McCain is elected. Another old white man. I was disappointed, though, by Obama's choice of Jim Johnson to head up his VP committee- Johnson is deep in the doodoo of Washington politics and scheming and has been so for decades. WHY Obama did that I cannot understand. I wrote an outraged message to his campaign and said if he wanted votes of folks like me , he had better revisit his motto of change we can believe in...can't believe it if the Jim Johnsons of the world are part of his team. Happily Johnson saw the train wreck coming and resigned.
I survived the two weeks with Aunt Carolie-- barely. Fortunately for both of us, I was gone pretty much 5 days out of that time, and while I was gone, Anna G and her friend Jan looked after Aunt C--got her out, took her to yard sales and thrift shops etc. She had a good time in the end, but we literally nearly killed each other the first few days. She is SO negative it is unbelievable. When challenged on that or any of a dozen other things she just snarls and lashes out--says her family chews her up enough about it--I don't have a right to-- and actually PUT MONEY on the counter one day, saying now she was a cash paying customer and I could not be rude to her!!! This after she growled at me when I walked in the door from walking Lily, saying " Well YOU didn't go very far!!" Like it mattered!! I asked her why she couldn't just ask " Did you have a nice walk?" and then she said I was being rude!!!
Anyway-- a lecture from our Aunt Jeannie to her while I was out seemed to get her into a new place. Jeannie apparently told her to cherish this sister time together--it was rare and might never happen again-- and Carolie seems to have listened. After that it was easier-- though her passive aggression and moodiness did not change much. We did have a lovely day a week ago driving back to Minneapolis to George's-- we stopped at a dozen yard sales and junk shops and ate brats from a brat fry raising money for a local fire department, etc. Other than the occasional meltdown in the car over not being able to find something, it was good.
It was fun to see George and Lisa, who now live in a lovely house in a gorgeous subdivision north of Mpls. Mitchell is tall, gangly and adorable-- heading to the Marines at the end of the month if he passes his GED. He has a decommissioned police car for his wheels and he just loves it. It still has the safety screen divider behind the front seat, and looks like a police car. People give it a long second look when he parks in a parking lot!
We watched a movie at George's called Death at a Funeral--directed by Frank Oz--has any of you seen it?? It is without doubt one of the funniest movies I have EVER seen. The British struggling with stiff upper lip at a funeral gone completely mad. Came out in 2007. If you haven't seen it, do rent it-- Miriam--it would be a GREAT addition to your vacation on the Vineyard!!
I am listening to books on tape while I walk and pack-- the best so far is a Patrick O"Brian -- one of his long series about sailing ships in the early 19th century-- amazing historical fiction extremely well read. (The Mundies read their way through the O'Brian series as a family....!) I have Jhumpa Lahiri's latest group of short stories to listen to ==and then Milton Friedman-"The World is Flat"-- economics in the 20th century. I am now listening to a junky novel called the Venetian Betrayal about a mystery around the whereabouts of the remains of Alexander the Great-- the historical part is terrific. Unfortunately, the narrator feels it necessary to add extra melodrama to the reading.. yuck.
Well one more piece of good news-- the Gresches have a new grand daughter-- Kate Elise-- born last night at 8 45 PM and weighing in at 8 lbs and 20.25 inches-- nice healthy fat baby. It was another tough pregnancy for Kristi, who had to have bed rest for over 10 weeks--second time-- I think they won't have any more kids! Anna is euphoric to have a little girl to buy things for!!
Love to all MY baby girls-- all hitting milestones this year-- 35/30/25--wish we could all party together to celebrate. Remember those wonderful huge family celebrations in our backyard in DC in June? Grandpa's birthday(tomorrow) Father's Day, Moomie and Anna's birthday's, Mormor's Birthday-- sometimes even Jer's-- all thrown into one ginormous bash. Wonderful memories.
Congratulations to Moomie on sailing through the boards!! On to rotations and North Hampton.
Jules-- fill us in on wedding plans-- I am feeling outside of that loop!
'Na-- did you get to set up a bench in Drew's basement??
Well--back to my writing--I love you all, my dear daughters. Mama
5/24/08
HEY MY GIRLS!! I am moving--not to Maine as previously planned--but to DC!!! I have been offered a job at the school where I have been consulting for a year and a half--they have been so pleased with my work that they want me to to be there more!!
Babbo knew I was MAYBE going to do this, but I swore him to secrecy because I did not want to tell YOU three until I had a firm commitment from the school-=---and that just happened THIS MORNING. Whew!! The principal has had me on a string for 6 weeks deciding if they could hire me at the rate I need.
It will be a half-time hourly job, 20 hours a week--at a good rate--enough to live on and some more--no benefits, I think, but actually I can get health insurance until I finish my degree-- and I will be almost old enough for Medicare by that time!! (SEE?? There IS a reason for my sloth.)
I am going to try to live in the general neighborhood of the school-- Columbia Heights or up Georgia or 13th-- in fact, there was a nice English basement at Arkansas and Emerson....--it would be too funny. Actually, I want to be a bit closer so I can walk as often as possible. As you know, Columbia Heights is literally booming-- new condos being built at Georgia and New Hampshire, 14th and Irving--and there is a new shopping center at 14th and Irving-- Target, Marshalls, Best Buy-- fantastic--plus the restaurants and night life are amazing.
On the 2nd I go to DC for the last session of this year and will house hunt then. Babbo has left his car for me to use--so nice. Gwen and Ken were cheering for me, too--Janet, too--Libe doesn't know yet. It will be so fun to have lots of friends again!!
The OTHER part of the story is that Aunt Carolie is coming for two weeks-- I pick her up tomorrow from Minneapolis--she is ostensibly going to help me pack, but really will decompress from a major stew of problems in Alb--the soap opera continues....Will we survive two weeks together??? Well, as noted above, I will be gone for 4 days anyway, so that is GOOD.
I have to start the new job around August 18-- so will do the actual move the first week of August. I am coming to help you , Moommie, whenever you can figure out you want to move--I am guessing the last week of June? I will try to get to Maine mid-June and will come in and out of Maine until towards the end of July. I have two contracts then--one in South Dakota, one in New Orleans-- July/August in N'awlins----MISERY!!--MONEY!! After those, I will come back here and load my load and head for DC.
I would LOVE it if you guys would call me so we can chortle over this wonderful news. I am excited to get out of Wisconsin and even more excited to have regular money coming in--=work has been good, but so irregular that I can never quite get far enough ahead to weather the dry spells.
So much going on for us ladies, huh???? Mir, we will have to post pictures all over the web--and Julie, too-- keeping us up to date on plans-- and 'Na showing us what she is creating over the summer!
Babbo knew I was MAYBE going to do this, but I swore him to secrecy because I did not want to tell YOU three until I had a firm commitment from the school-=---and that just happened THIS MORNING. Whew!! The principal has had me on a string for 6 weeks deciding if they could hire me at the rate I need.
It will be a half-time hourly job, 20 hours a week--at a good rate--enough to live on and some more--no benefits, I think, but actually I can get health insurance until I finish my degree-- and I will be almost old enough for Medicare by that time!! (SEE?? There IS a reason for my sloth.)
I am going to try to live in the general neighborhood of the school-- Columbia Heights or up Georgia or 13th-- in fact, there was a nice English basement at Arkansas and Emerson....--it would be too funny. Actually, I want to be a bit closer so I can walk as often as possible. As you know, Columbia Heights is literally booming-- new condos being built at Georgia and New Hampshire, 14th and Irving--and there is a new shopping center at 14th and Irving-- Target, Marshalls, Best Buy-- fantastic--plus the restaurants and night life are amazing.
On the 2nd I go to DC for the last session of this year and will house hunt then. Babbo has left his car for me to use--so nice. Gwen and Ken were cheering for me, too--Janet, too--Libe doesn't know yet. It will be so fun to have lots of friends again!!
The OTHER part of the story is that Aunt Carolie is coming for two weeks-- I pick her up tomorrow from Minneapolis--she is ostensibly going to help me pack, but really will decompress from a major stew of problems in Alb--the soap opera continues....Will we survive two weeks together??? Well, as noted above, I will be gone for 4 days anyway, so that is GOOD.
I have to start the new job around August 18-- so will do the actual move the first week of August. I am coming to help you , Moommie, whenever you can figure out you want to move--I am guessing the last week of June? I will try to get to Maine mid-June and will come in and out of Maine until towards the end of July. I have two contracts then--one in South Dakota, one in New Orleans-- July/August in N'awlins----MISERY!!--MONEY!! After those, I will come back here and load my load and head for DC.
I would LOVE it if you guys would call me so we can chortle over this wonderful news. I am excited to get out of Wisconsin and even more excited to have regular money coming in--=work has been good, but so irregular that I can never quite get far enough ahead to weather the dry spells.
So much going on for us ladies, huh???? Mir, we will have to post pictures all over the web--and Julie, too-- keeping us up to date on plans-- and 'Na showing us what she is creating over the summer!
1/17/08
Bragging rights: Just shoveled a good 6 inches of snow from what I calculate is about 100 feet of sidewalk. I worked up a REAL healthy sweat.
What I have learned about shoveling snow:
Do it while it is 6 inches or under-- shoveling 10-14 inches of snow is a lot more work.
Shovel regularly to keep ahead of what the plows throw back into walkways and driveways.
Shoveling is easier without glasses-- they just get steamed up and then it looks like there is more snow than there really is.
Shoveling while it is 20 or warmer is better because the drips from the nose do not freeze right away.
Keep the bouncy dog away from the newly shoveled sidewalk--she drags snow right back onto it.
Well-insulated boots are a blessing.
Well-insulated dogs LOVE snow-- Lily thinks it is the gift of all time-- she literally swims in it-- digging holes and then rolling and flipping around like she was on peyote buttons-- and I swear she is not!
No matter that it means a lot of work if you live in the city, white, fluffy, newly fallen snow is one of the loveliest things I know of--
---along with the field of bluebells I remember in a valley near our cabin in West Virginia-- or the Maine coast on a foggy afternoon in summer--or the sky over the west side of the valley of Albuquerque at late sunset with moon rising over the mountains and sun setting over the desert and sky a purple that cannot be described.
What I haven't learned well enough
DO NOT LIVE ON A CORNER LOT IN THE CITY WHERE THERE ARE TREES/SNOW-- RAKING AND SHOVELING ARE TRIPLED IF NOT QUADRUPLED!!
What I have learned about shoveling snow:
Do it while it is 6 inches or under-- shoveling 10-14 inches of snow is a lot more work.
Shovel regularly to keep ahead of what the plows throw back into walkways and driveways.
Shoveling is easier without glasses-- they just get steamed up and then it looks like there is more snow than there really is.
Shoveling while it is 20 or warmer is better because the drips from the nose do not freeze right away.
Keep the bouncy dog away from the newly shoveled sidewalk--she drags snow right back onto it.
Well-insulated boots are a blessing.
Well-insulated dogs LOVE snow-- Lily thinks it is the gift of all time-- she literally swims in it-- digging holes and then rolling and flipping around like she was on peyote buttons-- and I swear she is not!
No matter that it means a lot of work if you live in the city, white, fluffy, newly fallen snow is one of the loveliest things I know of--
---along with the field of bluebells I remember in a valley near our cabin in West Virginia-- or the Maine coast on a foggy afternoon in summer--or the sky over the west side of the valley of Albuquerque at late sunset with moon rising over the mountains and sun setting over the desert and sky a purple that cannot be described.
What I haven't learned well enough
DO NOT LIVE ON A CORNER LOT IN THE CITY WHERE THERE ARE TREES/SNOW-- RAKING AND SHOVELING ARE TRIPLED IF NOT QUADRUPLED!!
9/1/07
Hi Fam-- I realized as I was cleaning out my in and out boxes that I haven't really sent a newsy letter in a while-- Julie has called faithfully, and Jerry --and I know Mir, you are up to your arse in alligators in various swamps.
It is a gorgeous early fall Labor Day weekend here-- the Gresches have gone to Ashland to load up Elsie's basement with wood for her back-up furnace and to harvest the last berries and vegetables from her gardens. I am at the end of my first week back from Maine and finally feel sort of here.
This week I went to a concert in the square downtown-- polka, folk, cajun--all sorts of music by a very energetic group --the lead female played about 7 instruments and sang, too--the square was FULL-- about 2,000 people--all very social and Wisconsin-looking-- pretty white crowd, too--a few Hmong and other Asians and a very few black persons sprinkled in the happy crowd. I walked with Lily--about a 20 minute walk-- and met the Gresches==Anna was equipped with snacks and Al read the paper while Anna and I visited about the news with music blaring in the background.
Wednesday and today I went to the farmers' market, which is along the river, near downtown. Wednesday it was small-about 12 vendors--all Hmong and Amish-- today it was much bigger-- maybe 30 vendors-- and such riches of gorgeous, truly locally grown vegetables and flowers, honey, maple syrup, cheese, meat and processed meats of grass-fed animals, etc. All for a third of what any of it would cost in a supermarket-=-except the honey and syrup, which are normal prices. But fresh dug potatoes, tomatoes that "swam 5 minutes ago" as we used to say at the farm and other goodies are cheap cheap cheap.
Today I met my friend Mark, the alcoholic welder who works for Al between welding jobs and keeps Lily for me a lot-- he is in LOVE with Lily and she with him-- he asked to have her last night, so we met up at the market to pass her off. Then we went to the back of the market to the flume along the river built for kayakers and watched a lot of kayakers practicing running rapids, turning around, turning over, etc. It was so colorful--the Wisconsin version of colorful lobster boats, as it were.
Then Lily and I walked back, me listening to Rumpole stories which Babbo so nicely provided for me. (Mark is my Wisconsin version of Warren, but not so compliant and companionable--he is usually partially wasted, totally a mess, argumentative and negative. A smart guy who CANNOT get his shit together. His brother, who is way more functional (he is a top-level welder at a plant outside of Milwaukee)--but also lacking a few neural pathways-- got arrested this week for an illegal left turn--AND for having no driver's license--it was suspended a year ago and not reinstated because he did not go to DUI school. A cascade of bad judgments-- Mark is even worse-- finally it gets very tiresome...Al loses patience with the whole scene about once a week. He has to call Mark the night before he wants him to work and remind him not to drink in the AM--and then calls in the AM to remind him again-- rarely works, though....and Lutheran Al is totally disgusted-=-but employs Mark, who appears to have no other idea of how to get work when not welding...)
Last night, while Mark had Lily, I went north about 17 miles to Merrill-- I went to an antique store Anna G introduced me to last week to pick up a bowl for her and one I had put on lay away--a green glass bowl with a lid, sort of like a large refrigerator box-- gorgeous. Then I had the traditional mid-west Friday night fishfry at a local family restaurant--Skippers : "No one sails away hungry." The fish was not QUITE as good a fresh-caught Maine fish, but over all very tasty-- this little frumpy restaurant is special because it has a "patio"--indeed, a cemented empty slot next door with nice wire mesh tables and umbrellas and a little Italian fountain at the end surrounded by large pink petunias. Very pleasant place to read the paper and eat.
I stayed for dinner because I wanted to see Ratatouille, which opened at the little local theater in Merrill last night-- $4.00 senior ticket, too! It isn't as quaint as the Milbridge one-screen theater where I saw Harry Potter this summmer, but almost. Ratatouille is WONDERFUL-- no kid flick, really--and a paeon to good cooking and the restaurant business, if you ask me. Very odd to have rats as heroes--but that is the joy of movies, huh?
Yesterday during the day, since Al was not employing him then Mark and I worked on my patio-- when I moved in, Al had put in a patio door on the south side of my living room to let in more light--it then took months of prodding to get him to put in stairs down from the door to the grass, and by late spring I had decided to add a patio at the bottom of the steps.
There is a NICE patio between the back of the house and the garage and little barn along the alley, but the lady upstairs uses that and her huge pit-bull is tied to the fence beyond it every day and uses the tall grass next to the little barn as his own poopatorium,(and has for 3 years-- he is never walked-just tied out three times a day) so it isn't a very inviting place to sit. The house is sort of long and narrow and has quite a bit of yard along the south ( the long side, which faces a neighboring house), so decided to make the end of that yard, which is where the door from the living room comes out, my own patio area. Mark and I laid weed blocking cloth, then special gravel, then red paving blocks--it will be pretty nice once it is done, but I need more blocks. I'll have my little fountain (the dolphin from Newport--remember, Julie--I had it on the balcony outside my room at Dwight? And behind my house in Columbus.) alongside the patio and will put up a couple of lattice panels to make it a little private--then lots of pots.
The steps are terrific-- I have them filled with flower pots on the side where the door does not open. My gorgeous hibiscus is loving the sun out there, too.
I have lots of weeding to do in the beds I planted before I left for Maine, but thanks to my neighbors, who watered, almost every thing I planted survived. The garden and patio keep Anna G's hopes up that I will stay in this house a while-- til the end of the blinkin' degree anyway.
Anna has had a tough couple of weeks-- she has had light vaginal and urinary bleeding since mid-July and lots of pain in her lower back--she has been undergoing zillions of tests and fortunately for her, the doctors seem to be really paying attention and doing all they can to figure it out. The urologist ruled out anything at all worrisome in that system this week, so she was very relieved-=-but there is more to discover in the other system. She has never been so close to a breakdown before--- she calls all the time and we are together a lot. It is what she dearly wanted- a sister, as it were.
Her friend Jan--whom Babbo and Miriam know-- still has no job and is slipping further into serious depression--it has been almost two full years now since she lost her job in Chicago.(She is the one whose mother has slipped far into dementia, too--Jan keeps her at home because they live off the mother's SSI benefits). Anna tries her darndest (and that is pretty good, as you know) to keep Jan busy and fed and distracted, but finally Jan is resisting. Very sad to see. Jan did a wonderful job keeping my houseplants alive while I was in Maine--but she will not socialize or call or do anything she is not prodded into doing.
I have a list a mile long of work I am pushing away at. September will be busy travel-wise-- the 12th I go to Rochester, NY to start a new project with ESOL teachers there (it will be the second night of Rosh Hashanah; maybe I will do a dinner here for friends on Tuesday)-- I expect to go back several times this year to visit the teachers.
Then to Florida in the last week of Sept for a couple days at an adult literacy conference. I will also confer with a wonderful lady who is a researcher at U Fl -Gainesville-- she wants me to be expert consultant on a huge federal grant she has to study non-literate adult ESOL learners---couldn't be better for my doctoral work! They will pay me to design tests for these learners and then study the results!
At the end of Sept. I go to Madison to the Wisconsin TESOL Conference, where I will present and will facilitate a panel for the people from the tech college here. They have a wonderful project to help older ESOL teens transition to career or college courses out of high school, where they did not have enough time to do the ESOL they need for college. This will launch my year of involvement in Wisconsin--the same man who arranged for so many workshops for me to do last year will pay me to do this, and then we will plan with programs what other professional development they want me to do.
Soon after that, I head off to S.Dakota to do a keynote at a conference, then a couple of sessions for them--next to DC to keep going on my work at the charter ESOL school--that will be the 9th 10 and 11th-- as you know, I will head back home through Detroit, for Moji's Nikki's huge birthday/celebratory bash.
I am scheduled to go to Mid-state NY on the 24th of October--and am planning to either be in Maine before that or to go to Maine after that for a couple of weeks. Take note, Miriam-- maybe you and a few friends could come up.
Meanwhile, I am writing stuff like crazy-- articles, courses, and lit-review chapters. It is a rich time for me. I tried hard to get that lady from Salem State College in MA to consider being on my doctoral committee, but she turned out to be a fizzle--she answered e-mails three weeks late, and was languid about setting up a personal encounter or a telephone conference, so I told her to forget it. My co-author from U of Minn, who is an ESOL person herself, suggested a lady at U-Mass Amherst, whose publishing at least, seems to coincide amazingly with my work. I am going to contact her this week to see if she will consider it.
On the home front I have been plagued by failure of Charter Communications to figure out how to reinstate my bundled services after a vacation interruption , which THEY suggested and implemented!! Over 8 days, I have called 11 times and spoken to now l7 people--quite of few of whom promised to have service up and running in "the next 24 hours". Since it is now Saturday and I have no service, they were all unsuccessful. I keep reminding them when they put me on hold for another 30 minutes, that I am calling them on MY Time on MY cell phone plan--that only serves to make them apologize more for putting me on hold. I was unfailingly polite-- really, Julie, I was-- until yesterday, when I got extremely testy when that 17th person started asking for my name, address, phone # SSN etc-- AGAIN.
Today I will just go to their voice menu and instead of bullying through by pushing 0 over and over until I get a human, I will select the option to disconnect service-- and go to Verizon--surely they cannot be WORSE than this-- I have to say, Al warned me heartily about this last fall, but until now I had no real reason to complain.
In the meantime, as you know, I have been able to grab a weak, but usable free signal from some neighbor and usually can do e-mail or internet work with little problem--sometimes the signal fades and sometimes connection is slow, but mostly it works.
I have resorted to DVD's for rare entertainment interludes-- or the live movie, like last night. So maybe I will go the Maine route and have NO external services at all!
Well--must buckle down to some work--- please do write or call when you can. Wisconsin seems far more remote than Downest Maine ever did. I asked Charlie and Barb what they were doing for Labor Day but they are busy--and decided not to invite myself to my aunt's house--and the Robinson's are busy helping their neighbor, who is just back home finally after a terrible accident in Colorado in June left him a paraplegic. The neighbors--60 of them, including Jim, built him a new accessible bedroom and bathroom-- that is community, huh?
Love to you, my fam. Mama
It is a gorgeous early fall Labor Day weekend here-- the Gresches have gone to Ashland to load up Elsie's basement with wood for her back-up furnace and to harvest the last berries and vegetables from her gardens. I am at the end of my first week back from Maine and finally feel sort of here.
This week I went to a concert in the square downtown-- polka, folk, cajun--all sorts of music by a very energetic group --the lead female played about 7 instruments and sang, too--the square was FULL-- about 2,000 people--all very social and Wisconsin-looking-- pretty white crowd, too--a few Hmong and other Asians and a very few black persons sprinkled in the happy crowd. I walked with Lily--about a 20 minute walk-- and met the Gresches==Anna was equipped with snacks and Al read the paper while Anna and I visited about the news with music blaring in the background.
Wednesday and today I went to the farmers' market, which is along the river, near downtown. Wednesday it was small-about 12 vendors--all Hmong and Amish-- today it was much bigger-- maybe 30 vendors-- and such riches of gorgeous, truly locally grown vegetables and flowers, honey, maple syrup, cheese, meat and processed meats of grass-fed animals, etc. All for a third of what any of it would cost in a supermarket-=-except the honey and syrup, which are normal prices. But fresh dug potatoes, tomatoes that "swam 5 minutes ago" as we used to say at the farm and other goodies are cheap cheap cheap.
Today I met my friend Mark, the alcoholic welder who works for Al between welding jobs and keeps Lily for me a lot-- he is in LOVE with Lily and she with him-- he asked to have her last night, so we met up at the market to pass her off. Then we went to the back of the market to the flume along the river built for kayakers and watched a lot of kayakers practicing running rapids, turning around, turning over, etc. It was so colorful--the Wisconsin version of colorful lobster boats, as it were.
Then Lily and I walked back, me listening to Rumpole stories which Babbo so nicely provided for me. (Mark is my Wisconsin version of Warren, but not so compliant and companionable--he is usually partially wasted, totally a mess, argumentative and negative. A smart guy who CANNOT get his shit together. His brother, who is way more functional (he is a top-level welder at a plant outside of Milwaukee)--but also lacking a few neural pathways-- got arrested this week for an illegal left turn--AND for having no driver's license--it was suspended a year ago and not reinstated because he did not go to DUI school. A cascade of bad judgments-- Mark is even worse-- finally it gets very tiresome...Al loses patience with the whole scene about once a week. He has to call Mark the night before he wants him to work and remind him not to drink in the AM--and then calls in the AM to remind him again-- rarely works, though....and Lutheran Al is totally disgusted-=-but employs Mark, who appears to have no other idea of how to get work when not welding...)
Last night, while Mark had Lily, I went north about 17 miles to Merrill-- I went to an antique store Anna G introduced me to last week to pick up a bowl for her and one I had put on lay away--a green glass bowl with a lid, sort of like a large refrigerator box-- gorgeous. Then I had the traditional mid-west Friday night fishfry at a local family restaurant--Skippers : "No one sails away hungry." The fish was not QUITE as good a fresh-caught Maine fish, but over all very tasty-- this little frumpy restaurant is special because it has a "patio"--indeed, a cemented empty slot next door with nice wire mesh tables and umbrellas and a little Italian fountain at the end surrounded by large pink petunias. Very pleasant place to read the paper and eat.
I stayed for dinner because I wanted to see Ratatouille, which opened at the little local theater in Merrill last night-- $4.00 senior ticket, too! It isn't as quaint as the Milbridge one-screen theater where I saw Harry Potter this summmer, but almost. Ratatouille is WONDERFUL-- no kid flick, really--and a paeon to good cooking and the restaurant business, if you ask me. Very odd to have rats as heroes--but that is the joy of movies, huh?
Yesterday during the day, since Al was not employing him then Mark and I worked on my patio-- when I moved in, Al had put in a patio door on the south side of my living room to let in more light--it then took months of prodding to get him to put in stairs down from the door to the grass, and by late spring I had decided to add a patio at the bottom of the steps.
There is a NICE patio between the back of the house and the garage and little barn along the alley, but the lady upstairs uses that and her huge pit-bull is tied to the fence beyond it every day and uses the tall grass next to the little barn as his own poopatorium,(and has for 3 years-- he is never walked-just tied out three times a day) so it isn't a very inviting place to sit. The house is sort of long and narrow and has quite a bit of yard along the south ( the long side, which faces a neighboring house), so decided to make the end of that yard, which is where the door from the living room comes out, my own patio area. Mark and I laid weed blocking cloth, then special gravel, then red paving blocks--it will be pretty nice once it is done, but I need more blocks. I'll have my little fountain (the dolphin from Newport--remember, Julie--I had it on the balcony outside my room at Dwight? And behind my house in Columbus.) alongside the patio and will put up a couple of lattice panels to make it a little private--then lots of pots.
The steps are terrific-- I have them filled with flower pots on the side where the door does not open. My gorgeous hibiscus is loving the sun out there, too.
I have lots of weeding to do in the beds I planted before I left for Maine, but thanks to my neighbors, who watered, almost every thing I planted survived. The garden and patio keep Anna G's hopes up that I will stay in this house a while-- til the end of the blinkin' degree anyway.
Anna has had a tough couple of weeks-- she has had light vaginal and urinary bleeding since mid-July and lots of pain in her lower back--she has been undergoing zillions of tests and fortunately for her, the doctors seem to be really paying attention and doing all they can to figure it out. The urologist ruled out anything at all worrisome in that system this week, so she was very relieved-=-but there is more to discover in the other system. She has never been so close to a breakdown before--- she calls all the time and we are together a lot. It is what she dearly wanted- a sister, as it were.
Her friend Jan--whom Babbo and Miriam know-- still has no job and is slipping further into serious depression--it has been almost two full years now since she lost her job in Chicago.(She is the one whose mother has slipped far into dementia, too--Jan keeps her at home because they live off the mother's SSI benefits). Anna tries her darndest (and that is pretty good, as you know) to keep Jan busy and fed and distracted, but finally Jan is resisting. Very sad to see. Jan did a wonderful job keeping my houseplants alive while I was in Maine--but she will not socialize or call or do anything she is not prodded into doing.
I have a list a mile long of work I am pushing away at. September will be busy travel-wise-- the 12th I go to Rochester, NY to start a new project with ESOL teachers there (it will be the second night of Rosh Hashanah; maybe I will do a dinner here for friends on Tuesday)-- I expect to go back several times this year to visit the teachers.
Then to Florida in the last week of Sept for a couple days at an adult literacy conference. I will also confer with a wonderful lady who is a researcher at U Fl -Gainesville-- she wants me to be expert consultant on a huge federal grant she has to study non-literate adult ESOL learners---couldn't be better for my doctoral work! They will pay me to design tests for these learners and then study the results!
At the end of Sept. I go to Madison to the Wisconsin TESOL Conference, where I will present and will facilitate a panel for the people from the tech college here. They have a wonderful project to help older ESOL teens transition to career or college courses out of high school, where they did not have enough time to do the ESOL they need for college. This will launch my year of involvement in Wisconsin--the same man who arranged for so many workshops for me to do last year will pay me to do this, and then we will plan with programs what other professional development they want me to do.
Soon after that, I head off to S.Dakota to do a keynote at a conference, then a couple of sessions for them--next to DC to keep going on my work at the charter ESOL school--that will be the 9th 10 and 11th-- as you know, I will head back home through Detroit, for Moji's Nikki's huge birthday/celebratory bash.
I am scheduled to go to Mid-state NY on the 24th of October--and am planning to either be in Maine before that or to go to Maine after that for a couple of weeks. Take note, Miriam-- maybe you and a few friends could come up.
Meanwhile, I am writing stuff like crazy-- articles, courses, and lit-review chapters. It is a rich time for me. I tried hard to get that lady from Salem State College in MA to consider being on my doctoral committee, but she turned out to be a fizzle--she answered e-mails three weeks late, and was languid about setting up a personal encounter or a telephone conference, so I told her to forget it. My co-author from U of Minn, who is an ESOL person herself, suggested a lady at U-Mass Amherst, whose publishing at least, seems to coincide amazingly with my work. I am going to contact her this week to see if she will consider it.
On the home front I have been plagued by failure of Charter Communications to figure out how to reinstate my bundled services after a vacation interruption , which THEY suggested and implemented!! Over 8 days, I have called 11 times and spoken to now l7 people--quite of few of whom promised to have service up and running in "the next 24 hours". Since it is now Saturday and I have no service, they were all unsuccessful. I keep reminding them when they put me on hold for another 30 minutes, that I am calling them on MY Time on MY cell phone plan--that only serves to make them apologize more for putting me on hold. I was unfailingly polite-- really, Julie, I was-- until yesterday, when I got extremely testy when that 17th person started asking for my name, address, phone # SSN etc-- AGAIN.
Today I will just go to their voice menu and instead of bullying through by pushing 0 over and over until I get a human, I will select the option to disconnect service-- and go to Verizon--surely they cannot be WORSE than this-- I have to say, Al warned me heartily about this last fall, but until now I had no real reason to complain.
In the meantime, as you know, I have been able to grab a weak, but usable free signal from some neighbor and usually can do e-mail or internet work with little problem--sometimes the signal fades and sometimes connection is slow, but mostly it works.
I have resorted to DVD's for rare entertainment interludes-- or the live movie, like last night. So maybe I will go the Maine route and have NO external services at all!
Well--must buckle down to some work--- please do write or call when you can. Wisconsin seems far more remote than Downest Maine ever did. I asked Charlie and Barb what they were doing for Labor Day but they are busy--and decided not to invite myself to my aunt's house--and the Robinson's are busy helping their neighbor, who is just back home finally after a terrible accident in Colorado in June left him a paraplegic. The neighbors--60 of them, including Jim, built him a new accessible bedroom and bathroom-- that is community, huh?
Love to you, my fam. Mama
7/7/07
Saturday, 7/7/07
WHOA!! Julie’s DAY!! (Her favorite number is 7) And today I got the news that she has made a serious career move—training for catering manager at a deli/bakery! You go girl!!
Just wanted to tell you all about two wonderful days this week which involved Stonington, ME. If you look on a map of Maine and find Mt. Desert Island, look south and then west and you will see another big island, Deer Isle—which has a tiny town of Stonington at the very bottom of it—about 50 miles and an hour and half drive from Steuben.
My friend Agnes (the lady from NJ who built a house just down the road) came back up for the week. (Coincidentally, it was with Agnes that I spent last year’s 4th, in Bar Harbor ( that foggy evening of fireworks I told many of you about)—and that was the trip on which I saw my house and made arrangements with Agne’s real estate lady to proceed with purchase!)
We cast about for a 4th outing for this year and decided on Deer Isle/Stonington, as they were said to have good celebrations to see. We set off early Wed AM and gaped at the lovely scenery and OLD houses and villages—including the Village of Blue Hill, which is famous for MONEY and antiques and ART. After Blue Hill we came to Caterpillar Hill, where one can look out over the entire Penobscot Bay and archipelago in it. A breathtaking sight on a sunny, fresh morning. We could see Isle au Haut, a part of the national park clear at the southern end of the bay, beyond Stonington, and part of the bay between Mt. Desert and Deer Isle. Gorgeous. Probably the second best view after the view from Mt. Desert itself.
On down the hill we came to the body of water separating the Blue Hill peninsula from Little Deer Isle—the Eggemoggin ( Egg a moggin—hard g’s) Reach, (What a wonderful name!) down which were sailing not one, but two schooners—one three-masted, one two masted. The reach is crossed by a picturesque old bridge with a very high arch in it to permit boats to go under. Down the other side of the bridge is Little Dear Isle—just that—a little island---and then the highway crosses a long causeway to Deer Isle itself—and few miles on, the town of Deer Isle—founded mid 18th century on points of inlets—very picturesque sort of hilly little town. That was where the parade was. The crowd was already pretty thick, so we found a parking place in some high weeds, grabbed Lily and our folding chairs and headed down the street with hundreds of others. We were lucky to arrive just at the corner where the parade was to turn and where the stationary band was located in someone’s front yard, serenading us during the entire parade with great band music.
There we ran into friend and neighbor Ann and her children and parents –the parents live just over the Reach on the Blue Hill Peninsula. I knew Ann and family would be there, but had no idea we would see them!
We quickly found great seats on the grass surrounded by a large crowd of people and dogs!! As I was looking for a place to sit, a lady came rushing up to me and hesitated a bit and then announced she was delegated to be the one to ask me what kind of dog Lily was. Just as I was explaining, another in her party ran up and announced, “ We live in France and fly back and forth a lot and our dog has gotten too big to fit under the seat. Your dog is just the right size. What IS she?? “ ( THAT is the kind of crowd it was and the people who live on Deer Isle!!) (Interestingly, I had just taken my kitty to the vet the previous day and Lily was with me—the vet said right away there was terrier there, and a lady waiting pronounced that the terrier piece was Yorkshire—so now I need a new appellation for her—Pomershire?? Yorkiranian? Pomiyorkishire?? )
The parade was hilarious. It was peopled by participants from the whole island. Stonington, as the name implies, was –still is—famous for its granite quarries, so the highlight of the parade for us was the group called Quarryography—some “dancers” had large pieces of rectangular pink “ granite blocks” (of foam) on their heads and they would put themselves together in a solid block. Then the other “dancers” would pretend to “quarry” them by pounding pipes on real stones to sound like quarrying. Pretty soon the blocks would “break apart” and everyone would cheer loudly!! They were preceded by the lobster group—first a little child’s train of lobster cars made from oil cans with claws attached and tails made of parts of those soft tunnel things for kids, all painted bright red---the little train was pulled by a garden tractor.
Then a group of people dressed up as lobsters—and of course there were boats sprinkled through the parade in one form or another and other fishing themes. Agnes and I also liked the wonderfully glittery float on a flat bed that had the residents of the home for people needing assistance due to mental or physical impairments—they were happily waving away at the crowd.
The parade made its way up through town and then turned around and came back—we walked up behind it to the Congregational Church—one of those impossibly pretty white New England churches—where there was the “Clearwater Café” serving crab rolls and other goodies, raising money for efforts against domestic abuse. Of course we had to support that. (Agnes runs a literacy program in Ocean Co. NJ, and is deeply involved in all such community efforts.) On the way we toured the grounds of a house that is a gallery—the artist invited us to look around—it was really neat—he and his wife had put paths around the back of the house a little ways into their deep woods and then had placed sculptures along the paths—he makes things of a special kind of cream-colored concrete and found wood and other objects. He makes some impressionistic or abstract art and some more real—fish, men in boats--really neat stuff. Sorry I not more eloquent about describing art!
After a quick foray into a large antique shop in the parish house for another old church—the parish house had all walls covered with pressed tin—wonderful –we explored a bit around Deer Isle and saw many gorgeous houses and views. Then on to Stonington itself—at the foot of Deer Isle. A cuter, more Maine village and views would be hard to imagine. One person at the parade sort of dismissed Stonington as a “working village”—well, it is that and much more. It is perched on a huge, huge granite outcropping, so all over there are granite ledges sticking out into the harbors with little shanties perched on them; then there are HUGE lobster pounds arranged in the fingers of the ledges and little peninsulas that stick out from the bottom of the island. (lobster pounds for you non-east coasters are penned off inlets where lobsters are raised or held for marketing—pasture for lobsters, in other words). It turns out that experiments in lobster farming are happening there, plus clam farming and other activities. It also turns out that Stonington has recently re-dredged part of the harbor so large boats can come in and tie up-which they do—at the very large fish pier, which is where the rest of the festivities were located. That and all the other piers were like the ones at our island—about 15 feet off the water because of the huge tide, and with large floating docks at the end of ramps—except of course, the fish pier, which had deep water at the end and on one side.
Stonington is made up of dozens of adorable cottages and houses, some Victorian, mostly just Maine coastal cute, perched on that granite and looking out over harbor and islands and wharfs and anchored boats and views to DIE for—sort of Mediterranean in the way the houses climb the hillside overlooking the harbors and inlets. Nearly all of the houses appear to be summer-occupied and in splendid condition. It seems that the rich people “from away” have been coming there for generations—so there is a healthy variety of upscale gift shops, clothing stores, antique shops, bookstores, inns, restaurants etc. – all terribly, terribly tasteful and patronized by the terribly, terribly good looking rich and their offspring and dogs. It has none of the hustle and bustle and commercialism of Bar Harbor and ALL of the Maine charm and coastal culture one could want. Agnes and I are seriously in love with Stonington, and you, too, can have a two-level condo looking over the harbor for $395 K…….or a house big enough for an entire extended family for over a million—or a trailer on a half acre on the highway out of town for around 150K…
The afternoon/evening festivity was the Fish ‘N Fritter—a food event on Fish Pier to raise money for college scholarships for the local children. It started at 4—so we had a lot of time to while away—I walked with Lily—the beach was covered with moon jelly fish (Mir and Karen, remember the ones we saw and swam among on Culebra in PR??) --turns out there is a ‘bloom” of them all over the east coast—they are pretty and harmless. It was actually quite chilly (one man we had a conversation with at the lookout on Caterpillar Hill noted that summer was last Thursday…..!!!) Agnes was quite dismayed, thinking summer in Maine was going to be hot—HA!! I had a couple of sweaters and a jacket, knowing full well that seaside in Maine = chilly wind more often than not.
The people watching as preparations for the food proceeded was great—I told Agnes you could tell in a heartbeat who was “from away” and who was local. The local hot boys were the “insane clown posse “ (it said so on their shirts) with one with a full-blown purple Mohawk and the others in skater outfits and pierced parts. They spent the entire afternoon and evening parading up and down the pier with various females in tow.
Once the food got going, it was pretty crowded—the build-up reminded me of those videos you see where time is speeded up and at first there are two or three people, then 20, then 120—then masses of people! All the time we were waiting, the two schooners we had seen were plying the harbor near and far away, disappearing behind the little islands and then being framed picturesquely between islands, etc.
Food was clam fritters, fried fish (as in fish and chips, only they had regular white vinegar—no malt vinegar, sigh…) popcorn shrimp, onion rings, “doughboys”—large doughy fried things, different from fried dough, believe it or not--and various other things. Another stand had sausages and hot dogs—but most were thronging the Fish ‘N Fritter. Every time someone donated money to the fund over and above the cost of food, a large bell was rung—bells rang all afternoon and evening.
Lily was a big hit with everyone—reminded me of being in France with Petunia and Ogden—everyone wants to talk. One man from Britain who was asking about Lily’s mix told me that someone has developed a swab that one will be able to buy anywhere---swab the inside cheek of your dog, send it in and you will get results telling you exactly what mix your dog is!! Pretty neat—Karen, too late for Howie and for us and Tessie.
Finally it was so windy and chilly we retreated to the car—and ate and waited for fireworks—which were out over the harbor. It was late and we were cold and I had a LONG drive ahead, so I wasn’t overwhelmed by the fireworks,--but they were pretty good nonetheless—by the time we were home it was 15 hour day!
We had noticed that one building perched up the hill from the pier was the ‘Stonington Opera House”—on the Register of Historic Places—and found a flyer (Is that the right one??) saying they were doing a production of “Taming Of the Shrew”.
On Thursday, Agnes got a paper in Ellsworth with a review of the play—turns out it had 7 equity actors and this company has done productions every year for many years ( I TOLD you it was peopled by people from away—heard an elderly lady musician interviewed on MPR about her book, Comfort Cove, or something—about coming to Stonington for EONS from New York—she commuted for music jobs sometimes—you have NO idea how difficult that must have been!!!) (And ANYONE, said the theater manager, can “buy” a seat for the fundraising for only $1,000!) Anyway, the review was very favorable, so we decided on Friday to go see it.
BACK to Stonington – another beautiful drive—and we were NOT disappointed. It was a terrific production—the conceit was a group of women in a prison—group cell—circa 1935—this was a way to deal with the power issues in the play, which are difficult to portray to modern audiences. A new arrival in the cell is sulky and resistant to discipline—so the matron has the women do a production of TOTS for the new one to learn her place (she was Katarina, of course). In the best Shakespeare tradition, almost all played multiple roles—using minimal costume pieces to indicate their roles. One excellent actor with a long blonde page-boy and lots of red lipstick, played Senior Grumio (the elderly neighbor of Senior Battiista, father of Kate and sister Bianca—whom he is hoping to marry) and Senior Hortencio, also a suitor of Bianca. She played Grumio with a walker and Hortencio with a scarf and cap, and often had consecutive lines for each part–switching back and forth breathlessly—she was hilarious. Bianca was played by the only male, a WONDERFUL comic actor who was the guard, and when he was Bianca, minced around wearing the light blue prison uniform the other women wore, still wearing his socks with garters and then with a silly little red headband with a flower—it was sidesplitting. As I said, all but 2 were equity actors and the others are two high school girls heading to college—and acting—in the fall, so it was extremely well acted. What a joy to watch!! The most interesting aspect was how the prison theme and interpersonal conflicts between inmates were mixed in with the play. I have gotten to more cultural events in three weeks than I have all YEAR!!
I had grabbed a rotisserie chicken and some salads for a quick dinner—we got there too late to eat before the play, so ate on the fish pier after the show–now warm—even at 10 PM—Maine weather! To my shock, Agnes—81 yrs old-- had NEVER had rotisserie chicken! I reminisced about all the wonderful places I have eaten rotisserie chicken—in front of cathedrals in Italy, under the Pont du Gard in France, outside the Lescaux caves in south western France, on rocks on the coast of Maine, and in a wonderful, funky Central American restaurant in Wheaton, MD, where they turn out hundreds of spit-roasted chickens an hour and you eat them out of the cardboard box on the spot–delicious!
The weather here is what is called “unsettled”—meaning thunderstorms, temperatures up and down, occasional fog and sunshine—but NOT warm—though the locals run around in shirts and tank tops like it was the Caribbean or something. The lupines have finished, but roses are thick, blue vetch is abundant and buttercups are everywhere—the wild flowers are astounding! Fresh strawberries are for sale all over the place.
Things are progressing on my house between research and reading stints. Got up the “RLS memorial shelves” in the DR –which are now full of familiar treasures—the plate from Sweden with the painting of Renneslav Kirke, the church where my great grandfather was baptized, the Bremen Town Musician figurine my grandmother bought in Bremen on the famous family trip to Europe in 1962, the great celadon teapot Julie gave me in Boston, etc. --it is good to have them all around me. I also put up the lovely Belgian wooden cookie molds—and the mudroom now is spacious since I put in plastic shelving for stuff and hooks for jackets, leashes, umbrellas and tote bags—plus a great bench to sit on a change to boots—found the bench in a collection of “freebies” sitting in front of a house for sale.
Still no word from Ray about moving the boat—I sure hope that happens. Today I went to the Steuben library to get on line briefly and there was Caroline—Jason’s sister—I haven’t seen anything of the family since A & J left—It was a shock to see someone familiar!
And good news—FINALLY heard from the lady at Salem State College in MA who has volunteered to be the third person on my doctoral committee!! Sounds like she might be a good match. She is a professor of ESL—teaching teachers how to be ESL teachers.
Well, back to reading about second language reading. Nerdy me--I love it—but first the evening walk with Lily—a transcendental experience: Tunk Stream, which empties into a pond, and then the sea behind my house, is full of rain and rushing loudly over its boulders parallel to the road where we walk; the bull frogs across the street are “gunking” earnestly in their tiny pond, and the fireflies are flashing in trees and meadows behind the neighbors’ houses like laser-light shows. It’s too cloudy tonight for the usual star display—milky way literally milky white and constellations so clear even I can see them….!! More next week after more adventures. Love to all, Mom/Robin
WHOA!! Julie’s DAY!! (Her favorite number is 7) And today I got the news that she has made a serious career move—training for catering manager at a deli/bakery! You go girl!!
Just wanted to tell you all about two wonderful days this week which involved Stonington, ME. If you look on a map of Maine and find Mt. Desert Island, look south and then west and you will see another big island, Deer Isle—which has a tiny town of Stonington at the very bottom of it—about 50 miles and an hour and half drive from Steuben.
My friend Agnes (the lady from NJ who built a house just down the road) came back up for the week. (Coincidentally, it was with Agnes that I spent last year’s 4th, in Bar Harbor ( that foggy evening of fireworks I told many of you about)—and that was the trip on which I saw my house and made arrangements with Agne’s real estate lady to proceed with purchase!)
We cast about for a 4th outing for this year and decided on Deer Isle/Stonington, as they were said to have good celebrations to see. We set off early Wed AM and gaped at the lovely scenery and OLD houses and villages—including the Village of Blue Hill, which is famous for MONEY and antiques and ART. After Blue Hill we came to Caterpillar Hill, where one can look out over the entire Penobscot Bay and archipelago in it. A breathtaking sight on a sunny, fresh morning. We could see Isle au Haut, a part of the national park clear at the southern end of the bay, beyond Stonington, and part of the bay between Mt. Desert and Deer Isle. Gorgeous. Probably the second best view after the view from Mt. Desert itself.
On down the hill we came to the body of water separating the Blue Hill peninsula from Little Deer Isle—the Eggemoggin ( Egg a moggin—hard g’s) Reach, (What a wonderful name!) down which were sailing not one, but two schooners—one three-masted, one two masted. The reach is crossed by a picturesque old bridge with a very high arch in it to permit boats to go under. Down the other side of the bridge is Little Dear Isle—just that—a little island---and then the highway crosses a long causeway to Deer Isle itself—and few miles on, the town of Deer Isle—founded mid 18th century on points of inlets—very picturesque sort of hilly little town. That was where the parade was. The crowd was already pretty thick, so we found a parking place in some high weeds, grabbed Lily and our folding chairs and headed down the street with hundreds of others. We were lucky to arrive just at the corner where the parade was to turn and where the stationary band was located in someone’s front yard, serenading us during the entire parade with great band music.
There we ran into friend and neighbor Ann and her children and parents –the parents live just over the Reach on the Blue Hill Peninsula. I knew Ann and family would be there, but had no idea we would see them!
We quickly found great seats on the grass surrounded by a large crowd of people and dogs!! As I was looking for a place to sit, a lady came rushing up to me and hesitated a bit and then announced she was delegated to be the one to ask me what kind of dog Lily was. Just as I was explaining, another in her party ran up and announced, “ We live in France and fly back and forth a lot and our dog has gotten too big to fit under the seat. Your dog is just the right size. What IS she?? “ ( THAT is the kind of crowd it was and the people who live on Deer Isle!!) (Interestingly, I had just taken my kitty to the vet the previous day and Lily was with me—the vet said right away there was terrier there, and a lady waiting pronounced that the terrier piece was Yorkshire—so now I need a new appellation for her—Pomershire?? Yorkiranian? Pomiyorkishire?? )
The parade was hilarious. It was peopled by participants from the whole island. Stonington, as the name implies, was –still is—famous for its granite quarries, so the highlight of the parade for us was the group called Quarryography—some “dancers” had large pieces of rectangular pink “ granite blocks” (of foam) on their heads and they would put themselves together in a solid block. Then the other “dancers” would pretend to “quarry” them by pounding pipes on real stones to sound like quarrying. Pretty soon the blocks would “break apart” and everyone would cheer loudly!! They were preceded by the lobster group—first a little child’s train of lobster cars made from oil cans with claws attached and tails made of parts of those soft tunnel things for kids, all painted bright red---the little train was pulled by a garden tractor.
Then a group of people dressed up as lobsters—and of course there were boats sprinkled through the parade in one form or another and other fishing themes. Agnes and I also liked the wonderfully glittery float on a flat bed that had the residents of the home for people needing assistance due to mental or physical impairments—they were happily waving away at the crowd.
The parade made its way up through town and then turned around and came back—we walked up behind it to the Congregational Church—one of those impossibly pretty white New England churches—where there was the “Clearwater Café” serving crab rolls and other goodies, raising money for efforts against domestic abuse. Of course we had to support that. (Agnes runs a literacy program in Ocean Co. NJ, and is deeply involved in all such community efforts.) On the way we toured the grounds of a house that is a gallery—the artist invited us to look around—it was really neat—he and his wife had put paths around the back of the house a little ways into their deep woods and then had placed sculptures along the paths—he makes things of a special kind of cream-colored concrete and found wood and other objects. He makes some impressionistic or abstract art and some more real—fish, men in boats--really neat stuff. Sorry I not more eloquent about describing art!
After a quick foray into a large antique shop in the parish house for another old church—the parish house had all walls covered with pressed tin—wonderful –we explored a bit around Deer Isle and saw many gorgeous houses and views. Then on to Stonington itself—at the foot of Deer Isle. A cuter, more Maine village and views would be hard to imagine. One person at the parade sort of dismissed Stonington as a “working village”—well, it is that and much more. It is perched on a huge, huge granite outcropping, so all over there are granite ledges sticking out into the harbors with little shanties perched on them; then there are HUGE lobster pounds arranged in the fingers of the ledges and little peninsulas that stick out from the bottom of the island. (lobster pounds for you non-east coasters are penned off inlets where lobsters are raised or held for marketing—pasture for lobsters, in other words). It turns out that experiments in lobster farming are happening there, plus clam farming and other activities. It also turns out that Stonington has recently re-dredged part of the harbor so large boats can come in and tie up-which they do—at the very large fish pier, which is where the rest of the festivities were located. That and all the other piers were like the ones at our island—about 15 feet off the water because of the huge tide, and with large floating docks at the end of ramps—except of course, the fish pier, which had deep water at the end and on one side.
Stonington is made up of dozens of adorable cottages and houses, some Victorian, mostly just Maine coastal cute, perched on that granite and looking out over harbor and islands and wharfs and anchored boats and views to DIE for—sort of Mediterranean in the way the houses climb the hillside overlooking the harbors and inlets. Nearly all of the houses appear to be summer-occupied and in splendid condition. It seems that the rich people “from away” have been coming there for generations—so there is a healthy variety of upscale gift shops, clothing stores, antique shops, bookstores, inns, restaurants etc. – all terribly, terribly tasteful and patronized by the terribly, terribly good looking rich and their offspring and dogs. It has none of the hustle and bustle and commercialism of Bar Harbor and ALL of the Maine charm and coastal culture one could want. Agnes and I are seriously in love with Stonington, and you, too, can have a two-level condo looking over the harbor for $395 K…….or a house big enough for an entire extended family for over a million—or a trailer on a half acre on the highway out of town for around 150K…
The afternoon/evening festivity was the Fish ‘N Fritter—a food event on Fish Pier to raise money for college scholarships for the local children. It started at 4—so we had a lot of time to while away—I walked with Lily—the beach was covered with moon jelly fish (Mir and Karen, remember the ones we saw and swam among on Culebra in PR??) --turns out there is a ‘bloom” of them all over the east coast—they are pretty and harmless. It was actually quite chilly (one man we had a conversation with at the lookout on Caterpillar Hill noted that summer was last Thursday…..!!!) Agnes was quite dismayed, thinking summer in Maine was going to be hot—HA!! I had a couple of sweaters and a jacket, knowing full well that seaside in Maine = chilly wind more often than not.
The people watching as preparations for the food proceeded was great—I told Agnes you could tell in a heartbeat who was “from away” and who was local. The local hot boys were the “insane clown posse “ (it said so on their shirts) with one with a full-blown purple Mohawk and the others in skater outfits and pierced parts. They spent the entire afternoon and evening parading up and down the pier with various females in tow.
Once the food got going, it was pretty crowded—the build-up reminded me of those videos you see where time is speeded up and at first there are two or three people, then 20, then 120—then masses of people! All the time we were waiting, the two schooners we had seen were plying the harbor near and far away, disappearing behind the little islands and then being framed picturesquely between islands, etc.
Food was clam fritters, fried fish (as in fish and chips, only they had regular white vinegar—no malt vinegar, sigh…) popcorn shrimp, onion rings, “doughboys”—large doughy fried things, different from fried dough, believe it or not--and various other things. Another stand had sausages and hot dogs—but most were thronging the Fish ‘N Fritter. Every time someone donated money to the fund over and above the cost of food, a large bell was rung—bells rang all afternoon and evening.
Lily was a big hit with everyone—reminded me of being in France with Petunia and Ogden—everyone wants to talk. One man from Britain who was asking about Lily’s mix told me that someone has developed a swab that one will be able to buy anywhere---swab the inside cheek of your dog, send it in and you will get results telling you exactly what mix your dog is!! Pretty neat—Karen, too late for Howie and for us and Tessie.
Finally it was so windy and chilly we retreated to the car—and ate and waited for fireworks—which were out over the harbor. It was late and we were cold and I had a LONG drive ahead, so I wasn’t overwhelmed by the fireworks,--but they were pretty good nonetheless—by the time we were home it was 15 hour day!
We had noticed that one building perched up the hill from the pier was the ‘Stonington Opera House”—on the Register of Historic Places—and found a flyer (Is that the right one??) saying they were doing a production of “Taming Of the Shrew”.
On Thursday, Agnes got a paper in Ellsworth with a review of the play—turns out it had 7 equity actors and this company has done productions every year for many years ( I TOLD you it was peopled by people from away—heard an elderly lady musician interviewed on MPR about her book, Comfort Cove, or something—about coming to Stonington for EONS from New York—she commuted for music jobs sometimes—you have NO idea how difficult that must have been!!!) (And ANYONE, said the theater manager, can “buy” a seat for the fundraising for only $1,000!) Anyway, the review was very favorable, so we decided on Friday to go see it.
BACK to Stonington – another beautiful drive—and we were NOT disappointed. It was a terrific production—the conceit was a group of women in a prison—group cell—circa 1935—this was a way to deal with the power issues in the play, which are difficult to portray to modern audiences. A new arrival in the cell is sulky and resistant to discipline—so the matron has the women do a production of TOTS for the new one to learn her place (she was Katarina, of course). In the best Shakespeare tradition, almost all played multiple roles—using minimal costume pieces to indicate their roles. One excellent actor with a long blonde page-boy and lots of red lipstick, played Senior Grumio (the elderly neighbor of Senior Battiista, father of Kate and sister Bianca—whom he is hoping to marry) and Senior Hortencio, also a suitor of Bianca. She played Grumio with a walker and Hortencio with a scarf and cap, and often had consecutive lines for each part–switching back and forth breathlessly—she was hilarious. Bianca was played by the only male, a WONDERFUL comic actor who was the guard, and when he was Bianca, minced around wearing the light blue prison uniform the other women wore, still wearing his socks with garters and then with a silly little red headband with a flower—it was sidesplitting. As I said, all but 2 were equity actors and the others are two high school girls heading to college—and acting—in the fall, so it was extremely well acted. What a joy to watch!! The most interesting aspect was how the prison theme and interpersonal conflicts between inmates were mixed in with the play. I have gotten to more cultural events in three weeks than I have all YEAR!!
I had grabbed a rotisserie chicken and some salads for a quick dinner—we got there too late to eat before the play, so ate on the fish pier after the show–now warm—even at 10 PM—Maine weather! To my shock, Agnes—81 yrs old-- had NEVER had rotisserie chicken! I reminisced about all the wonderful places I have eaten rotisserie chicken—in front of cathedrals in Italy, under the Pont du Gard in France, outside the Lescaux caves in south western France, on rocks on the coast of Maine, and in a wonderful, funky Central American restaurant in Wheaton, MD, where they turn out hundreds of spit-roasted chickens an hour and you eat them out of the cardboard box on the spot–delicious!
The weather here is what is called “unsettled”—meaning thunderstorms, temperatures up and down, occasional fog and sunshine—but NOT warm—though the locals run around in shirts and tank tops like it was the Caribbean or something. The lupines have finished, but roses are thick, blue vetch is abundant and buttercups are everywhere—the wild flowers are astounding! Fresh strawberries are for sale all over the place.
Things are progressing on my house between research and reading stints. Got up the “RLS memorial shelves” in the DR –which are now full of familiar treasures—the plate from Sweden with the painting of Renneslav Kirke, the church where my great grandfather was baptized, the Bremen Town Musician figurine my grandmother bought in Bremen on the famous family trip to Europe in 1962, the great celadon teapot Julie gave me in Boston, etc. --it is good to have them all around me. I also put up the lovely Belgian wooden cookie molds—and the mudroom now is spacious since I put in plastic shelving for stuff and hooks for jackets, leashes, umbrellas and tote bags—plus a great bench to sit on a change to boots—found the bench in a collection of “freebies” sitting in front of a house for sale.
Still no word from Ray about moving the boat—I sure hope that happens. Today I went to the Steuben library to get on line briefly and there was Caroline—Jason’s sister—I haven’t seen anything of the family since A & J left—It was a shock to see someone familiar!
And good news—FINALLY heard from the lady at Salem State College in MA who has volunteered to be the third person on my doctoral committee!! Sounds like she might be a good match. She is a professor of ESL—teaching teachers how to be ESL teachers.
Well, back to reading about second language reading. Nerdy me--I love it—but first the evening walk with Lily—a transcendental experience: Tunk Stream, which empties into a pond, and then the sea behind my house, is full of rain and rushing loudly over its boulders parallel to the road where we walk; the bull frogs across the street are “gunking” earnestly in their tiny pond, and the fireflies are flashing in trees and meadows behind the neighbors’ houses like laser-light shows. It’s too cloudy tonight for the usual star display—milky way literally milky white and constellations so clear even I can see them….!! More next week after more adventures. Love to all, Mom/Robin
7/2/07
Notes from Maine—Sunday July 1
Just had to share some wonderful things:
At dinnertime today I walked over to Agnes’ (the lady from NJ) for dinner—tide was out and the all the huge rocks of the cove exposed (for those of you who don’t know, this part of Maine has an 11’ tide, so much is exposed when the tide is out!) ---there on a BIG rock was a bald eagle, waiting patiently for fish—herring—which leads me to last night..
Lily and I often walk out Agnes’ road, which is the old Steuben wharf—dating from the late 18th century—so last evening because the moon was full, pale gold and brilliant, we walked out to admire the light on the water—as we walked along the side of the cove, I heard what sounded like waves lapping gently-only we don’t get much lap way up in this cove and there was no wind at all—then I began to look closer—the tide was clear in and the surface of the water was BOILING with herring—brit, my neighbor Ray, the fisherman says they are called== young herring. It was like a pond full of Koi at feeding time only not quite so frantic-- every now and then there would be splash or plop or roiling that WAS frantic—Ray says that happens when seals or large fish come under the school of herring and start feeding ---it was an amazing sound and sight!
Saturday I celebrated the 4th a bit early with my new suitor, Warren. To say Warren is not the sharpest knife in the drawer, brightest bulb in the chandelier….is to be kind, but he was so pitifully happy to get out of his group house it was worth it. Sat AM we went to Cherryfield—about 20 minutes north (REALLY north, not east) of Steuben, to see their parade—a very cute affair well attended on a splendid Maine day—blue sky, puffy clouds—about 60—65 in the sun. The parade went right by Frederick and Richard’s antique shop—these are the two old men who are my neighbors.
Highpoints were a fabulous bagpipe unit kitted out in lovely blue plaid kilts and the whole affair—no sporrans, though ( the purse in the front.) Also the horse unit—I was hoping to see Alicia Fish, but she chose not to ride—my neighbor, Shae Lynn ( I think that is the spelling) was riding-=-she is 14 and a wonderful girl—good friend of the Fish girls. And of course the Shriners—Anah temple from Bangor in their mini vehicles—the first wave had car-sized fishing boats of all kinds and a light house—pretty cute. Then there were the miniature 18 wheeler trucks—miniatures of the trucks of the companies sponsoring them—including my Dead River Oil company—they were pretty cute, too—and then the now de riguer go-karts with grown men roaring around and then zipping up and over a truck with tracks on it---it moves, they zip—Lily nearly fainted from the noise of those—all with their red fezzes on.
There was also a terrific community band that played on a truck—all ages, and GOOD. I wished the girls had been there to see the local princesses—the best was the one on the end of the platform on the truck who was about 9, round as a pumpkin and nearly as homely—hair skinned back in a ponytail, wearing a yellow chiffon princess dress with sash saying she was a princess—with a look on her face that was –well, both ecstatic and totally robotic and she waved her right hand as parade people are taught to do—again, totally robotic—it is hard to describe how funny she was.
There were all kinds of food stands and few other things—lots of noise and music jammed onto one little street in one little town.
Warren and I returned to Cherryfield in the evening to participate first in the monthly meat raffle at the American Legion hall—yes, meat raffle—no not, girls….meat. Pounds and pounds of meat, one set of lobsters, a picnic basket and several wads of money. Very simple--- you buy a “paddle “ (paint stir stick painted red with a number on it) or many at a buck a pop, some lady spins a big gaming wheel, and whichever number comes up wins that lot of meat, lobster etc. or else half of the take,, whatever was at stake. We didn’t win anything, of course—I was trying hard for the Porterhouse steaks –
Then we stepped outside and got barbecued ribs at a stand that Anna and Jason would have recognized as the Cherryfield version of the one Jason took me to in Christiansted in Feb—GREAT ribs!! About 4 pounds for $12 –fries and the inevitable white bread….
Then back inside for a Karaoke dance evening, which Warren was VERY excited about. (Warren has a GIANT belly and is unprepossessing at best to look at , so I was a bit nervous about his enthusing all the way there about how eager he was to dance….) Well, another unforgettable experience—about 25 people came—sitting at folding tables on either side of the middle of the huge hall—the middle was the dance floor. It was BYOB so some arrived with beer as we did, some arrived with 8 packs of rootbeer and jugs of Hawaiian punch.. ….. mostly the crowd was large middle-aged ladies in t shirts and saggy knit pants, a few couples. Warren knew several of the women, who are or have been caretakers at his group house. The best was the couple with the 4’8 woman and the 6’guy —she resembled the Michelin man—seriously—she weighed about 200 lbs—one tire for boobs and one truck tire for middle—and she was in a sort of stretchy dark evening dress with spaghetti straps and gold sparkle over a t shirt and with tennis shoes—the dress was a bit too long so the shoes were not much visible. Long stringy dark hair –they were the ones with the rootbeer and Hawaiian punch—and they had so much fun dancing…he had to bend clear over so they could dance holding on around each other’s necks!!! The “DJ” was a local lady with her computer Karaoke set up—
And like all Karaoke crowds, some could sing and some couldn’t –one of the older middle aged ladies was TERRIFIC—and some cleverly changed lyrics to suit their purpose—the lady who could sing did Coal Miner’s daughter and changed it to fisherman’s daughter. Everyone loved that! It was sort of oldie but goodie music—and Warren turned out to be a terrific dancer—especially to country and Western music—so we danced quite a bit—then went out at 9:30 to watch the 20 minute fireworks across the little river—and then home.
Warren has plans for us to hit every dance and event for the summer—I am certainly not intending to do that, but we did have a nice time. All day his only conversation was to ask me about every 7 minutes how I was doing, and then to comment on the weather ( how hot it had been last week) how much he hates his home, how grateful he was to be out of it for a day—until the ride home, when we got to talking about the moon—you could literally see the valleys and hills on the moon—and he announced without much preamble that he did NOT believe we were alone in this universe—whereupon my opinion of him rocketed up~~!! He told me he had witnessed a pretty significant UFO incident as a teen in his hometown of Cutler, which I gather is down the coast a ways—and he decided it was pretty real and therefore we humans could not possibly be the only ones inhabiting space. YAY for Warren.
And since I am hunting culture, I did two other things this week—Thursday went down to Prospect Harbor—about 20 minutes west and then straight south down the Schoodic Peninsula—to hear a group known as Acadian Consort—at a GORGEOUS inn that had pounding surf across the road—and the event was in a restored barn with white walls and beams showing and the most amazing 14-18 inch old, dark floor boards I have ever seen.
The trio== violin player, Irish pipe/banjo player and harp/ percussion guitar player—did “folk” songs and were earnest and awful. The violin player never seemed to know what to play and the harp player—who talked and sang, too,--could never—I am not exaggerating here—find the right note when they sang……the pipe/banjo player was fair, but outnumbered. I was so mad at myself for sitting clear through their endless, 27- piece program—but I had paid and it was a small crowd –couldn’t really walk out.
The next night more than made up—I went to Winter Harbor—which is across the bay from Bar Harbor and further down on the same peninsula as Prospect Harbor. There was a coffee house—a venue for professional folk singers. Mary had introduced me to coffee houses in MA and I love them. I was not disappointed. I heard the Tim Rowe trio—fiddler, guitar and bass guitar (electric instruments all—any of you ever seen an electric violin??? Pretty weird!!) –these guys, who are true professionals and perform all over New England and even farther ( they will be in Milwaukee in September) were TERRIFIC. Very energetic—they sang sea chantys and other similar music about ship wrecks and sailors and a few other things thrown in—one Acadian piece, Danny Boy, etc. These events always have fabulous home made desserts, coffee, tea and soft drinks. This one was held in a wonderful old hall that the people from away—and probably some year-round people --have clearly restored for all – there is a major arts festival there at the end of July which I am looking forward to.
Agnes and I will no doubt return to Bar Harbor for the 4th—it was a good celebration last year despite the fog…..
And I am so excited because Ray promised I could come along as he and his family sail his boat back this week from Southwest Harbor to Milbridge or another place—SW Harbor, for those of you who don’t know—is one of the villages on Mt. Desert Island (Where Bar Harbor is) and has a deep water dock, which Ray uses when fishing for sea cucumbers and eels. He wants to show me what Mt. Desert and the peninsulas look like from waterside. How fun will THAT be???!!!
More after that—Happy Birthday Anna and Chris Mundie—and Happy 4th to all.
News alert to all who enjoyed Casco Bay: Chebegue Island just succeeded in declaring itself independent of Cumberland Township (which is what Clapboard was part of .) The people on Chebegue said they wanted their town to “remain a viable, healthy working class community and not a seasonal playground for the wealthy…!!! It one of only 13 year round island communities, down from over 400 in the late 1800’s. Good on them, I say.
Forgot to say I also hiked one of the trails in the Petit Manan ( yes with an N in the middle) Wildlife Refuge, which is in the town of Steuben, a few miles away. For anyone who loves scenery and wildlife this is a MUST--- WOW!! Giant granite ledges, terrific views of Dyer’s Bay—which looks right into the ocean, and amazing flora of all kinds—it was terrific.
And to assure all of you I am not just enjoying local culture and scenery, I have submitted a 3,000 word article to an adult ed journal that invited it, reorganized all the files I brought, put 25 entries into my bibliography software—a HUGE job since I lost most of my bibliography several computers ago….and am working on outlines for a paper and a short article for some folks in Ohio. I also submitted proposals to the Wisconsin ESL conference in September, which, if accepted I will get paid to do.
And just took the kitty to the vet—lots of tests for lots of dollars to see if it is realistic to try to save her—she can’t eat—mouth is swollen and sore---she has a chronic abscess on her left cheek, she is painfully thin and so arthritic….. vet wouldn’t really concur on euthanasia until we checked to see if she could come out of all this.
Good news is that it will cost less than half here to have Lily spayed later this month compared to what it would have cost in Wisconsin—and she doesn’t have to spend the night, either—so, as Mormor used to say, what I lost on the roundabout I will make up on the swing…..
Still staggering from the $58 in roaming charges form Verizon for calling in Canada—isn’t it teeth-grindingly annoying how a $59 plan turns into $150/ mo?????
Love to all again. Mama/Robin ( AKA Roibin)
Just had to share some wonderful things:
At dinnertime today I walked over to Agnes’ (the lady from NJ) for dinner—tide was out and the all the huge rocks of the cove exposed (for those of you who don’t know, this part of Maine has an 11’ tide, so much is exposed when the tide is out!) ---there on a BIG rock was a bald eagle, waiting patiently for fish—herring—which leads me to last night..
Lily and I often walk out Agnes’ road, which is the old Steuben wharf—dating from the late 18th century—so last evening because the moon was full, pale gold and brilliant, we walked out to admire the light on the water—as we walked along the side of the cove, I heard what sounded like waves lapping gently-only we don’t get much lap way up in this cove and there was no wind at all—then I began to look closer—the tide was clear in and the surface of the water was BOILING with herring—brit, my neighbor Ray, the fisherman says they are called== young herring. It was like a pond full of Koi at feeding time only not quite so frantic-- every now and then there would be splash or plop or roiling that WAS frantic—Ray says that happens when seals or large fish come under the school of herring and start feeding ---it was an amazing sound and sight!
Saturday I celebrated the 4th a bit early with my new suitor, Warren. To say Warren is not the sharpest knife in the drawer, brightest bulb in the chandelier….is to be kind, but he was so pitifully happy to get out of his group house it was worth it. Sat AM we went to Cherryfield—about 20 minutes north (REALLY north, not east) of Steuben, to see their parade—a very cute affair well attended on a splendid Maine day—blue sky, puffy clouds—about 60—65 in the sun. The parade went right by Frederick and Richard’s antique shop—these are the two old men who are my neighbors.
Highpoints were a fabulous bagpipe unit kitted out in lovely blue plaid kilts and the whole affair—no sporrans, though ( the purse in the front.) Also the horse unit—I was hoping to see Alicia Fish, but she chose not to ride—my neighbor, Shae Lynn ( I think that is the spelling) was riding-=-she is 14 and a wonderful girl—good friend of the Fish girls. And of course the Shriners—Anah temple from Bangor in their mini vehicles—the first wave had car-sized fishing boats of all kinds and a light house—pretty cute. Then there were the miniature 18 wheeler trucks—miniatures of the trucks of the companies sponsoring them—including my Dead River Oil company—they were pretty cute, too—and then the now de riguer go-karts with grown men roaring around and then zipping up and over a truck with tracks on it---it moves, they zip—Lily nearly fainted from the noise of those—all with their red fezzes on.
There was also a terrific community band that played on a truck—all ages, and GOOD. I wished the girls had been there to see the local princesses—the best was the one on the end of the platform on the truck who was about 9, round as a pumpkin and nearly as homely—hair skinned back in a ponytail, wearing a yellow chiffon princess dress with sash saying she was a princess—with a look on her face that was –well, both ecstatic and totally robotic and she waved her right hand as parade people are taught to do—again, totally robotic—it is hard to describe how funny she was.
There were all kinds of food stands and few other things—lots of noise and music jammed onto one little street in one little town.
Warren and I returned to Cherryfield in the evening to participate first in the monthly meat raffle at the American Legion hall—yes, meat raffle—no not, girls….meat. Pounds and pounds of meat, one set of lobsters, a picnic basket and several wads of money. Very simple--- you buy a “paddle “ (paint stir stick painted red with a number on it) or many at a buck a pop, some lady spins a big gaming wheel, and whichever number comes up wins that lot of meat, lobster etc. or else half of the take,, whatever was at stake. We didn’t win anything, of course—I was trying hard for the Porterhouse steaks –
Then we stepped outside and got barbecued ribs at a stand that Anna and Jason would have recognized as the Cherryfield version of the one Jason took me to in Christiansted in Feb—GREAT ribs!! About 4 pounds for $12 –fries and the inevitable white bread….
Then back inside for a Karaoke dance evening, which Warren was VERY excited about. (Warren has a GIANT belly and is unprepossessing at best to look at , so I was a bit nervous about his enthusing all the way there about how eager he was to dance….) Well, another unforgettable experience—about 25 people came—sitting at folding tables on either side of the middle of the huge hall—the middle was the dance floor. It was BYOB so some arrived with beer as we did, some arrived with 8 packs of rootbeer and jugs of Hawaiian punch.. ….. mostly the crowd was large middle-aged ladies in t shirts and saggy knit pants, a few couples. Warren knew several of the women, who are or have been caretakers at his group house. The best was the couple with the 4’8 woman and the 6’guy —she resembled the Michelin man—seriously—she weighed about 200 lbs—one tire for boobs and one truck tire for middle—and she was in a sort of stretchy dark evening dress with spaghetti straps and gold sparkle over a t shirt and with tennis shoes—the dress was a bit too long so the shoes were not much visible. Long stringy dark hair –they were the ones with the rootbeer and Hawaiian punch—and they had so much fun dancing…he had to bend clear over so they could dance holding on around each other’s necks!!! The “DJ” was a local lady with her computer Karaoke set up—
And like all Karaoke crowds, some could sing and some couldn’t –one of the older middle aged ladies was TERRIFIC—and some cleverly changed lyrics to suit their purpose—the lady who could sing did Coal Miner’s daughter and changed it to fisherman’s daughter. Everyone loved that! It was sort of oldie but goodie music—and Warren turned out to be a terrific dancer—especially to country and Western music—so we danced quite a bit—then went out at 9:30 to watch the 20 minute fireworks across the little river—and then home.
Warren has plans for us to hit every dance and event for the summer—I am certainly not intending to do that, but we did have a nice time. All day his only conversation was to ask me about every 7 minutes how I was doing, and then to comment on the weather ( how hot it had been last week) how much he hates his home, how grateful he was to be out of it for a day—until the ride home, when we got to talking about the moon—you could literally see the valleys and hills on the moon—and he announced without much preamble that he did NOT believe we were alone in this universe—whereupon my opinion of him rocketed up~~!! He told me he had witnessed a pretty significant UFO incident as a teen in his hometown of Cutler, which I gather is down the coast a ways—and he decided it was pretty real and therefore we humans could not possibly be the only ones inhabiting space. YAY for Warren.
And since I am hunting culture, I did two other things this week—Thursday went down to Prospect Harbor—about 20 minutes west and then straight south down the Schoodic Peninsula—to hear a group known as Acadian Consort—at a GORGEOUS inn that had pounding surf across the road—and the event was in a restored barn with white walls and beams showing and the most amazing 14-18 inch old, dark floor boards I have ever seen.
The trio== violin player, Irish pipe/banjo player and harp/ percussion guitar player—did “folk” songs and were earnest and awful. The violin player never seemed to know what to play and the harp player—who talked and sang, too,--could never—I am not exaggerating here—find the right note when they sang……the pipe/banjo player was fair, but outnumbered. I was so mad at myself for sitting clear through their endless, 27- piece program—but I had paid and it was a small crowd –couldn’t really walk out.
The next night more than made up—I went to Winter Harbor—which is across the bay from Bar Harbor and further down on the same peninsula as Prospect Harbor. There was a coffee house—a venue for professional folk singers. Mary had introduced me to coffee houses in MA and I love them. I was not disappointed. I heard the Tim Rowe trio—fiddler, guitar and bass guitar (electric instruments all—any of you ever seen an electric violin??? Pretty weird!!) –these guys, who are true professionals and perform all over New England and even farther ( they will be in Milwaukee in September) were TERRIFIC. Very energetic—they sang sea chantys and other similar music about ship wrecks and sailors and a few other things thrown in—one Acadian piece, Danny Boy, etc. These events always have fabulous home made desserts, coffee, tea and soft drinks. This one was held in a wonderful old hall that the people from away—and probably some year-round people --have clearly restored for all – there is a major arts festival there at the end of July which I am looking forward to.
Agnes and I will no doubt return to Bar Harbor for the 4th—it was a good celebration last year despite the fog…..
And I am so excited because Ray promised I could come along as he and his family sail his boat back this week from Southwest Harbor to Milbridge or another place—SW Harbor, for those of you who don’t know—is one of the villages on Mt. Desert Island (Where Bar Harbor is) and has a deep water dock, which Ray uses when fishing for sea cucumbers and eels. He wants to show me what Mt. Desert and the peninsulas look like from waterside. How fun will THAT be???!!!
More after that—Happy Birthday Anna and Chris Mundie—and Happy 4th to all.
News alert to all who enjoyed Casco Bay: Chebegue Island just succeeded in declaring itself independent of Cumberland Township (which is what Clapboard was part of .) The people on Chebegue said they wanted their town to “remain a viable, healthy working class community and not a seasonal playground for the wealthy…!!! It one of only 13 year round island communities, down from over 400 in the late 1800’s. Good on them, I say.
Forgot to say I also hiked one of the trails in the Petit Manan ( yes with an N in the middle) Wildlife Refuge, which is in the town of Steuben, a few miles away. For anyone who loves scenery and wildlife this is a MUST--- WOW!! Giant granite ledges, terrific views of Dyer’s Bay—which looks right into the ocean, and amazing flora of all kinds—it was terrific.
And to assure all of you I am not just enjoying local culture and scenery, I have submitted a 3,000 word article to an adult ed journal that invited it, reorganized all the files I brought, put 25 entries into my bibliography software—a HUGE job since I lost most of my bibliography several computers ago….and am working on outlines for a paper and a short article for some folks in Ohio. I also submitted proposals to the Wisconsin ESL conference in September, which, if accepted I will get paid to do.
And just took the kitty to the vet—lots of tests for lots of dollars to see if it is realistic to try to save her—she can’t eat—mouth is swollen and sore---she has a chronic abscess on her left cheek, she is painfully thin and so arthritic….. vet wouldn’t really concur on euthanasia until we checked to see if she could come out of all this.
Good news is that it will cost less than half here to have Lily spayed later this month compared to what it would have cost in Wisconsin—and she doesn’t have to spend the night, either—so, as Mormor used to say, what I lost on the roundabout I will make up on the swing…..
Still staggering from the $58 in roaming charges form Verizon for calling in Canada—isn’t it teeth-grindingly annoying how a $59 plan turns into $150/ mo?????
Love to all again. Mama/Robin ( AKA Roibin)
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